In:
Nature Communications, Springer Science and Business Media LLC, Vol. 10, No. 1 ( 2019-01-30)
Abstract:
The assembly of spherical fullerenes, or buckyballs, into single crystals for crystallographic identification often suffers from disordered arrangement. Here we show a chiral configuration of decapyrrylcorannulene that has a concave ‘palm’ of corannulene and ten flexible electron-rich pyrryl group ‘fingers’ to mimic the smart molecular ‘hands’ for self-adaptably cradling various buckyballs in a (+)hand-ball-hand(−) mode. As exemplified by crystallographic identification of 15 buckyball structures representing pristine, exohedral, endohedral, dimeric and hetero-derivatization, the pyrryl groups twist with varying dihedral angles to adjust the interaction between decapyrrylcorannulene and fullerene. The self-adaptable electron-rich pyrryl groups, susceptible to methylation, are theoretically revealed to contribute more than the bowl-shaped palm of the corannulene in holding buckyball structures. The generality of the present decapyrrylcorannulene host with flexible pyrryl groups facilitates the visualization of numerous unknown/unsolved fullerenes by crystallography and the assembly of the otherwise close-packed spherical fullerenes into two-dimensional layered structures by intercalation.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
2041-1723
DOI:
10.1038/s41467-019-08343-6
Language:
English
Publisher:
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Publication Date:
2019
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2553671-0
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