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    Metal–ligand cooperative activation of nitriles by a ruthenium complex with a de-aromatized PNN pincer ligand
    (London : Soc., 2016) Eijsink, Linda E.; Perdriau, Sébastien C. P.; de Vries, Johannes G.; Otten, Edwin
    The pincer complex (PNN)RuH(CO), with a de-aromatized pyridine in the ligand backbone, is shown to react with nitriles in a metal–ligand cooperative manner. This leads to the formation of a series of complexes with new Ru–N(nitrile) and C(ligand)–C(nitrile) bonds. The initial nitrile cycloaddition products, the ketimido complexes 3, have a Brønsted basic (nitrile-derived) Ru–N fragment. This is able to deprotonate a CH2 side-arm of the pincer ligand to give ketimine complexes (4) with a de-aromatized pyridine backbone. Alternatively, the presence of a CH2 group adjacent to the nitrile functionality can lead to tautomerization to an enamido complex (5). Variable-temperature NMR studies and DFT calculations provide insight in the relative stability of these compounds and highlight the importance of their facile interconversion in the context of subsequent nitrile transformations.
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    Wave-shaped polycyclic hydrocarbons with controlled aromaticity
    (Cambridge : RSC, 2019) Ma, Ji; Zhang, Ke; Schellhammer, Karl Sebastian; Fu, Yubin; Komber, Hartmut; Xu, Chi; Popov, Alexey A.; Hennersdorf, Felix; Weigand, Jan J.; Zhou, Shengqiang; Pisula, Wojciech; Ortmann, Frank; Berger, Reinhard; Liu, Junzhi; Feng, Xinliang
    Controlling the aromaticity and electronic properties of curved π-conjugated systems has been increasingly attractive for the development of novel functional materials for organic electronics. Herein, we demonstrate an efficient synthesis of two novel wave-shaped polycyclic hydrocarbons (PHs) 1 and 2 with 64 π-electrons. Among them, the wave-shaped π-conjugated carbon skeleton of 2 is unambiguously revealed by single-crystal X-ray crystallography analysis. The wave-shaped geometry is induced by steric congestion in the cove and fjord regions. Remarkably, the aromaticity of these two structural isomers can be tailored by the annulated direction of cyclopenta[b]fluorene units. Isomer 1 (Eoptg = 1.13 eV) behaves as a closed-shell compound with weakly antiaromatic feature, whereas its structural isomer 2 displays a highly stable tetraradical character (y0 = 0.23; y1 = 0.22; t1/2 = 91 days) with a narrow optical energy gap of 0.96 eV. Moreover, the curved PH 2 exhibits remarkable ambipolar charge transport in solution-processed organic thin-film transistors. Our research provides a new insight into the design and synthesis of stable functional curved aromatics with multiradical characters. © The Royal Society of Chemistry.