A covalent organic cage compound acting as a supramolecular shadow mask for the regioselective functionalization of C60

Chem Sci. 2020 Jul 7;11(32):8409-8415. doi: 10.1039/d0sc03131c.

Abstract

A trigonal-bipyramidal covalent organic cage compound serves as an efficient host to form stable 1 : 1-complexes with C60 and C70. Fullerene encapsulation has been comprehensively studied by NMR and UV/Vis spectroscopy, mass spectrometry as well as single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Exohedral functionalization of encapsulated C60 via threefold Prato reaction revealed high selectivity for the symmetry-matched all-trans-3 addition pattern.