New manganese-scaffolded organic triple-deckers based on quinoxaline, pyrazine and pyrimidine cores

The thermolytic coupling of Ph(2)CN(2) and (t-Bu)(Ph)CN(2) with doubly cyclomanganated 2,5-diphenylpyrazine and 4,6-diphenylpyrimidine afforded substantial amounts of new triple decker compounds of either C(i) and C(2) symmetry respectively containing, in both series, two eta(3)-bonded Mn(CO)(3) fragments which intervene as scaffolds sustaining the helical non-conjugated triaryl backbone. The molecular structures of two pyrazine derivatives show a typical non-parallel stacking of the aromatic rings and the encapsulation of the central pyrazyl fragment with interplanar centroid-to-centroid distances of ca. 3.5 A. The stacking of the aromatics in the triple-decker pyrimidine derivatives has been assessed by (1)H NMR experiments at low temperature. All the triple-decker-type compounds are electroactive. Pyrimidine triple-deckers can reversibly be electrochemically reduced to the corresponding anions.