Synthetic Doping of Diamondoids through Skeletal Editing

Org Lett. 2022 Jul 15;24(27):4845-4849. doi: 10.1021/acs.orglett.2c00982. Epub 2022 May 13.

Abstract

We present a strategy for the skeletal editing of diamondoid structures to selectively displace methylene for heteroatom moieties in the carbon framework. This constitutes a synthetic approach to doping diamond-like structures with electron donor dopants (O, N, and S). The key steps involve two subsequent retro-Barbier fragmentations followed by cage reconstruction in the presence of a dopant. Remarkably, the incorporation of n-dopants reduces the strain of the diamondoid cage as shown through homodesmotic equations.