The Purported Synthesis of "Holey Graphyne" Fails Replication

A recent article by Ryu, Lee and coworkers claims synthesis of "holey graphyne," a strained sp2/sp1 carbon lattice featuring a repeating dibenzo-1,5-cyclooctadiene-3,7-diyne motif. Here, we describe the replication of the key experiments from this Article. We did not observe the formation of "holey graphyne" under the reported conditions. Furthermore, we show that the claimed copper-mediated sp2/sp1 cross-coupling chemistry fails even for undemanding model substrates.