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Synthesis

Double-decker buckyferrocenes

June 5, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 23

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Credit: COURTESY OF EIICHI NAKAMURA
Credit: COURTESY OF EIICHI NAKAMURA

By merging two ferrocene moieties and a buckyball, chemists at the University of Tokyo and Japan Science & Technology Agency have created a new class of linked diferrocenes (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 7154). These so-called double-decker buckyferrocenes (shown), prepared by Eiichi Nakamura, Yutaka Matsuo, and Kazukuni Tahara, feature two Fe(II) atoms, each sandwiched between a discrete cyclopentadiene ring and a cyclopentadiene ring on opposite sides of the fullerene's cage. Using the fullerene's conjugated π system as a network between them, the two ferrocene units can communicate electronically with one another. The system can reversibly undergo two successive single-electron oxidations as well as two successive single-electron reductions. The team employed two different synthetic pathways to prepare the hybrid structures. One route installs both metals onto the fullerene at the same time, while the other method adds the metals to the fullerene sequentially. These approaches, they say, could be used to synthesize a variety of other bimetallic fullerene-metal complexes, possibly even with two different metals.

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