Boronic esters are useful building blocks for crystal engineering and the generation of supramolecular architectures, including macrocycles, cages and polymers (one-, two- and three-dimensional), with potential utility in diverse fields such as separation, storage and luminescent materials. The novel dinuclear cyanophenylboronic ester described herein, namely 4,4'-(2,4,8,10-tetraoxa-3,9-diboraspiro[5.5]undecane-3,9-diyl)dibenzonitrile, C19H16B2N2O4, was prepared by condensation of 4-cyanophenylboronic acid and pentaerythritol and fully characterized by elemental analysis, IR and NMR (1H and 11B) spectroscopy, single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis and TG-DSC (thermogravimetry-differential scanning calorimetry) studies. In addition, the photophysical properties were examined in solution and in the solid state by UV-Vis and fluorescence spectroscopies. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations with ethanol as solvent reproduced reasonably well the HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital) and LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital) of the title compound. Hirshfeld surface and fingerprint plot analyses are presented to illustrate the supramolecular connectivity in the solid state.
Keywords: DFT calculations; boron; boronic ester; computational chemistry; crystal structure; molecular structure; photophysical properties; supramolecular structure.