About
苊 (è) is a modern scientific character created to denote the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon acenaphthene. It is a phono-semantic compound: the semantic radical 艹 (cǎo) at the top categorizes it as an organic chemical compound, following a modern convention for carbon-based derivatives. This is paired with the phonetic component 厄 (è) below, which contributes only the pronunciation needed to transliterate the Western term. Consequently, 苊 has no classical usage and appears exclusively in modern chemistry literature.