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Updated: Jun 29, 2025

Accessing Valuable Ligand Supports for Transition Metals: A Modified, Intermediate Scale Preparation of 1,2,3,4,5-Pentamethylcyclopentadiene
Published on: March 20, 2017
Facilitating Electron Transfer by Resizing Cyclocarbon Acceptor from C18 to C16
O A Stasyuk1, A A Voityuk1, A J Stasyuk1,2,3,4
1Institut de Química Computacional i Catàlisi and Departament de Química, Universitat de Girona, C/ Maria Aurèlia, Capmany 69, 17003, Girona, Catalonia, Spain.
Abstract:
Recent advances in synthetic methods, combined with tip-induced on-surface chemistry, have enabled the formation of numerous cyclocarbon molecules. Here, we investigate computationally the experimentally studied C16 and C18 molecules as well as their van der Waals (vdW) complexes with several typical donor and acceptor molecules. Our results demonstrate a remarkable electron-withdrawing ability of cyclocarbon molecules. The vdW complexes of C16 and C18 exhibit a thermodynamically favorable photoinduced electron transfer (ET) from the donor partner to the cyclocarbons that occurs on a picosecond time scale. The lower reorganization energy of C16 compared to C18 leads to a significant acceleration of the ET reactions.
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