Initiating Electron Transfer in Doubly Curved Nanographene Upon Supramolecular Complexation of C<sub>60</sub>
Simon Zank, Jesús M. Fernández‐García, Anton J. Stasyuk, Alexander A. Voityuk, Marcel Krug, Miquel Solà, Dirk M. Guldi, Nazario Martı́n
Abstract
Abstract The formation of supramolecular complexes between C 60 and a molecular nanographene endowed with both positive and negative curvatures is described. The presence of a corannulene moiety and the saddle shape of the molecular nanographene allows the formation of complexes with 1:1, 1:2, and 2:1 stoichiometries. The association constants for the three possible supramolecular complexes were determined by 1 H NMR titration. Furthermore, the stability of the three complexes was calculated by theoretical methods that also predict the photoinduced electron transfer from the curved nanographene to the electron acceptor C 60 . Time‐resolved transient absorption measurements on the ns‐time scale showed that the addition of C 60 to NG‐1 solutions and photo‐exciting them at 460 nm leads to the solvent‐dependent formation of new species, in particular the formation of the one‐electron reduced form of C 60 in benzonitrile was observed.