The participation of the tether moiety in fullerene recognition of corannulene-based molecular tweezers is known to be an important factor. In the present work, we describe the synthesis of a set of fullerene receptors bearing two corannulene units located at a suitable distance to effectively interact with C₆₀ and C₇₀. The tether comprises a fluorene-like scaffold where an assortment of different groups with variable electronic properties has been grafted. The photophysical and electrochemical properties of all final compounds have been unveiled and correlated to the donor/acceptor (DA) nature of the tether. Despite these strong variations, their affinity toward fullerenes cannot be correlated in any way to simple DA behavior as the main contribution to the interaction correspond to London dispersion forces. We found, however, that the sulfur-derived subfamily is able to adapt better to the fullerene outer surface slightly increasing the charge transfer and electrostatic attractive interactions being the most outstanding example the case of thiophene 4-S with C₇₀ as it is capable of forming a ternary 2:1 inclusion complex in solution with an electronic binding energy that offsets entropy and desolvation penalties typically associated with higher-order inclusion complexes.

中文翻译：

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从诱导装配到基于 Corannulene 的分子镊子中富勒烯的三元包合物

众所周知，系链部分参与基于环烯的分子镊子的富勒烯识别是一个重要因素。在目前的工作中，我们描述了一组富勒烯受体的合成，这些受体带有位于合适距离处的两个环烯单元，可以有效地与 C ₆₀和 C _{70相互作用}. 系链包含一个类似芴的支架，其中嫁接了各种具有可变电子特性的不同基团。所有最终化合物的光物理和电化学性质都已公开，并与系链的供体/受体 (DA) 性质相关联。尽管有这些强烈的变化，但它们对富勒烯的亲和力不能以任何方式与简单的 DA 行为相关，因为对相互作用的主要贡献对应于伦敦色散力。然而，我们发现，硫衍生的亚家族能够更好地适应富勒烯外表面，略微增加电荷转移和静电吸引相互作用，这是最突出的例子，即具有 C _70的噻吩4-S因为它能够在溶液中形成三元 2:1 包合物，电子结合能抵消通常与高阶包合物相关的熵和去溶剂化惩罚。