Incorporation of a five-membered ring into a helicene framework disrupts aromatic conjugation and provides a site for selective deprotonation. The deprotonation creates an anionic cyclopentadienyl unit, switches on conjugation, leads to a >200 nm red-shift in the absorbance spectrum and injects a charge into a helical conjugated π-system without injecting a spin. Structural consequences of deprotonation were revealed via analysis of a monoanionic helicene co-crystallized with {K+ (18-crown-6)(THF)} and {Cs+ 2 (18-crown-6)3 }. UV/Vis-monitoring of these systems shows a time-dependent formation of mono- and dianionic species, and the latter was isolated and crystallographically characterized. The ability of the twisted helicene frame to delocalize the negative charge was probed as a perturbation of aromaticity using NICS scans. Relief of strain, avoidance of antiaromaticity, and increase in charge delocalization assist in the additional dehydrogenative ring closures that yield a new planarized decacyclic dianion.
Keywords: aromaticity; benzannulation; cyclizations; helicenes; reductive coupling.
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