Release of the Water Molecule Encapsulated Inside an Open-Cage Fullerene through Hydrogen Bonding Mediated by Hydrogen Fluoride

Liang Xu; Hongjiang Ren; Sisi Liang; Jiahao Sun; Yajun Liu; Liangbing Gan

doi:10.1002/chem.201502306

Release of the Water Molecule Encapsulated Inside an Open-Cage Fullerene through Hydrogen Bonding Mediated by Hydrogen Fluoride

Chemistry. 2015 Sep 21;21(39):13539-43. doi: 10.1002/chem.201502306. Epub 2015 Aug 6.

Authors

Liang Xu¹, Hongjiang Ren², Sisi Liang¹, Jiahao Sun¹, Yajun Liu³, Liangbing Gan^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (P. R. China).
² Key Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Photochemistry, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875 (P. R. China).
³ Key Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Photochemistry, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875 (P. R. China). yajun.liu@bnu.edu.cn.
⁴ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (P. R. China). gan@pku.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Shanghai 200032 (P. R. China). gan@pku.edu.cn.

PMID: 26251196
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201502306

Abstract

A reversible wetting/dewetting procedure is reported for an open-cage fullerene with an 18-membered orifice. In a homogeneous mixture of H2O/EtOH/CHCl3, water was encapsulated into the cavity of the open-cage compound quantitatively at 80 °C. Addition of aqueous hydrogen fluoride into the water-encapsulated complex removed the encapsulated water completely at room temperature. H-bonding between the trapped water and fluoride is shown to play a key role for the water release process.

Keywords: fullerenes; hydrogen bonds; hydrogen fluoride; open-cage fullerenes; water encapsulation.