Design of Novel Aromatics using the Loschmidt Replacement on Graphs

Diversity-oriented synthesis of nanographenes enabled by dearomative annulative π-extension

Nanographenes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are among the most important classes of compounds, with potential applications in nearly all areas of science and technology. While the theoretically possible number of nanographene structures is extraordinary, most of these molecules remain synthetically out of reach due to a lack of programmable and diversity-oriented synthetic methods, and their potentially huge structure-property diversity has not been fully exploited. Herein we report a diversity-oriented, growth-from-template synthesis of nanographenes enabled by iterative annulative π-extension (APEX) reactions from small PAH starting materials. The developed dearomative annulative π-extension (DAPEX) reaction enables π-elongation at the less-reactive M-regions of PAHs, and is successfully combined with complementary APEX reactions that occur at K- and bay-regions to access a variety of previously untapped nanographenes.

Nanographenes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are important classes of compounds with numerous applications, but challenging to access due to a lack of programmable and diversity-oriented methods. Here, the authors report a diversity-oriented, growth-from-template synthesis of nanographenes enabled by iterative annulative π-extension reactions from small PAH starting materials.

Thiophene fused indenocorannulenes: synthesis, variable emission, and exceptional chiral configurational stability

Graph theory and isosteric replacement leads to the design and synthesis of (chiral) thiophene-fused indenocorannulenes with exceptional configurational stability and possible use as chiral catalysts, chiroptical materials, and sensors.

From Fragmentation to Construction--from Void to Massive: Fascination with Organic Mass Spectrometry and the Synthesis of Novel Three-Dimensional Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

Detailed insights gained from our research into the gas-phase chemistry of ionized and protonated diphenylalkanes and their congeners, obtained by extended synthesis of isotopically labeled model compounds and mass spectrometry, are presented and merged with those acquired during our development of a new family of polycyclic hydrocarbons, the centropolyindanes. Aside from a Personal Account that describes "two scientific lives in one", it is demonstrated, on the one hand, how our understanding of organic chemistry can help to shed light on the details of mass spectrometric fragmentation and to unravel, in a more fundamental way, the unimolecular reactivity of gaseous ions. On the other hand, it is shown how unexpected reactivity of related ions in solution, being subject to the very same fundamentals of organic chemistry, can lead to the construction of novel and, in part, unique three-dimensional polycyclic structures that may contribute to future research in material science. Two such apparently independent fields of organic chemistry may be seen as joint contributions of the art of science.

Counterexamples in Chemical Ring Perception

Ring information is a large part of the structural topology used to identify and characterize molecular structures. It is hence of crucial importance to obtain this information for a variety of tasks in computational chemistry. Many different approaches for "ring perception", i.e., the extraction of cycles from a molecular graph, have been described. The chemistry literature on this topic, however, reports a surprisingly large number of incorrect statements about the properties of chemically relevant ring sets and, in particular, about the mutual relationships of different sets of cycles in a graph. In part these problems seem to have arisen from a sometimes rather idiosyncratic terminology for notions that are fairly standard in graph theory. In this contribution we translate the definitions of concepts such as the Smallest Set of Smallest Rings, Essential Set of Essential Rings, Extended Set of Smallest Rings, Set of Smallest Cycles at Edges, Set of Elementary Rings, K-rings, and beta-rings into a more widely used mathematical language. We then outline the basic properties of different cycle sets and provide numerous counterexamples to incorrect claims in the published literature. These counterexamples may have a serious practical impact because at least some of them are molecular graphs of well-known molecules. As a consequence, we propose a catalog of desirable properties for chemically useful sets of rings.

On ring carbomers of cyclobutane, cyclopentane, and cyclodecane and cyclization reactions through bis(alkynyl-propargyl) coupling

A copper-mediated procedure for terminal alkynyl-propargyl coupling has been applied to "skipped" bis-terminal undecatetrayne and 1,4-bis(pseudo)halobut-2-ynes with the aim of preparing ring carbomers of representative strained and loose cycloalkanes, namely [N]pericyclynes. Two unprecedented, cyclic. "skipped" polyynes with CH2 vertices have been isolated as mixtures of diastereoisomers: an isomer 1b and a dimer 2a of [5]pericyclyne 1a. The isomer 1b is a cyclotetrayne with an exocyclic allene function resulting from a unique formal SN process. Its structure has been established by 1H/13C HMQC and HMBC two-dimensional NMR analysis. According to density functional theory calculations, it is about 6 kcalmol(-1) more stable than [5]pericyclyne (1a). Compound 1b can also be regarded as a C13-relaxed [4]pericyclyne, a long sought "skipped" C12 tetrayne. The dimer 2a is a C30 ring that results from a formal SN process. It is a stable ring carbomer of cyclodecane, that is, a [10]pericyclyne, with four CH2 vertices.