The pagodane route to dodecahedranes-unsaturated dodecahedranes, protection and deprotection

Bromination of Unsaturated Dodecahedranes—En Route to C20 Fullerene

As part of a study to achieve selective oligo(poly)bromination-ultimately perbromination-of the dodecahedral C(20) skeleton, the extent and direction of the ionic bromination of dodecahedrene and 1,16-dodecahedradiene were explored. Along sequences of Br(+) additions/deprotonations and allylic rearrangements, up to ten hydrogen atoms were substituted (traces of C(20)H(x)Br(10)). Tetrabromododecahedrenes obtained under defined conditions in up to 50 % total yield with three and four allylic bromine substituents protecting the extremely bent C==C bonds, proved highly unreactive even towards oxygen but reacted rapidly with CH(2)N(2). Upon electron impact ionization (MS) of the newly secured oligo(poly)bromododecahedra(e)nes, sequential loss of the substituents ended generally in polyunsaturated dodecahedranes (in the extreme C(20)H(4), "tetrahydro-C(20) fullerenes"). Only subsequently did skeletal fragmentations occur. From X-ray crystal-structure analyses, more information was obtained on the structural response of the dodecahedral skeleton to the strain induced by the voluminous substituents. As Appendix, the forcing radical bromination of 1,6-dibromododecahedrane and exploratory cis-beta-HBr/cis-beta-Br(2) eliminations in bromododecahedranes with [Fe(2)(CO)(9)], P(2)F/[FeCp(2)] and [Fe(tmeda)Cp*Cl] (in situ protection) are presented.

C20 Carbon Clusters: Fullerene–Boat–Sheet Generation, Mass Selection, Photoelectron Characterization

Electron-impact ionization in a time-of-flight mass spectrometer of C(20)H(0-3)Br(14-12) probes-secured from C(20)H(20) dodecahedrane by a "brute-force" bromination protocol-provided bromine-free C(20)H(0-2(3)) anions in amounts that allowed the clean mass-separation of the hydrogen-free C(20) (-) ions and the photoelectron (PE) spectroscopic characterization as C(20) fullerene (electron affinity (EA)=2.25+/-0.03 eV, vibrational progressions of 730+/-70). The extremely strained C(20) fullerene ions surfaced as kinetically rather stable entities (lifetime of at least the total flight time of 0.4 ms); they only very sluggishly expel a C(2) unit. The HOMO and LUMO are suggested to be almost degenerate (DeltaE=0.27 eV). The assignment as a fullerene was corroborated by the PE characterization of the C(20) bowl (EA=2.17+/-0.03 eV, vibrational progression of 2060+/-50 cm(-1)) analogously generated from C(20)H(10) corannulene (C(20)H(1-3)Br(9-8) samples) and comparably stable. Highly resolved low-temperature PE spectra of the known C(20) ring (EA=2.49+/-0.03 eV, vibrational progressions 2022+/-45 and 455+/-30 cm(-1)), obtained from graphite, display an admixture of, most probably, a bicyclic isomer (EA=3.40+/-0.03 eV, vibrational progression 455+/-30 cm(-1)). The C(20) (+(-)) and C(20)H(2) (+(-)) cluster ions generated from polybrominated perylene (C(20)H(0-2)Br(12-10)) have (most probably) retained the planar perylene-type skeleton (sheet, EA=2.47+/-0.03 eV, vibrational progressions of 2089+/-30 and 492+/-30 cm(-1) and EA=2.18+/-0.03 eV, vibrational progressions of 2105+/-30 and 468+/-30 cm(-1)).