A new case of chlorination-promoted fullerene cage shrinkage is reported. Chlorination of C90 (isolated pentagon rule isomer no. 28) with VCl4 afforded C88Cl22 with a nonclassic carbon cage (NCC) containing 1 heptagon and 13 pentagons including 2 fused pairs flanking the heptagon. The pathway of C2 abstraction from the C90 cage is suggested on the basis of density functional theory calculations.

Chlorination of the D(2)-C(76) fullerene under various conditions is studied in detail. It is found that, in addition to the previously known C(76)Cl(18) and C(76)Cl(34), a number of intermediate chlorides are formed, with all molecules falling into two structural types. The first type is observed in the C(76)Cl(18)-C(76)Cl(28) range, whereas further chlorination provides the C(76)Cl(30)-C(76)Cl(34) compounds of the second type exhibiting a major change in the addition motif. We also present a detailed theoretical rationalization of the previously observed skeletal rearrangement in the D(2)-C(76) that affords the non-IPR (18917)C(76)Cl(24) compound.

We systematically study low-energy crystalline polymorphs of the archetypal conjugated polymer, regioregular poly-3-hexylthiophene (rr-P3HT) using the best available density functional theory methods benchmarked against the ab initio coupled cluster method. A comprehensive conformational search is performed for two-dimensional π-stacks being the most rigid structural unit of bulk P3HT. We have identified a number of nearly isoenergetic polymorphs below the energy level of room-temperature amorphous structures and well below the energy of optimized best-fit experimental models. Classical molecular dynamics simulations show that these crystals retain their structure at least at 200 K. At room temperature, although the conjugated backbone of the π-stack remains ordered, aliphatic side chains are melted, transforming from low-energy folded conformations to highentropy fully unfolded structures. Our study shows that P3HT is a statistically frustrated system with multiple competing interactions, which complicates fabrication of highly ordered bulk forms but gives structural flexibility of glasses.

No abstract

The first example of three alternative chlorination-promoted skeletal transformation pathways in the same fullerene cage is presented. Isolated-pentagon-rule (IPR) C(19) undergoes both Stone-Wales rotations to give non-IPR CCl and C losses to form nonclassical C and non-IPR C. X-ray structural characterization of the transformation products and a theoretical study of their formation pathways are reported.