Reduction of Ethynylenes to Vinylenes in a Macrocyclic π-Extended Thiophene Skeleton Under McMurry Coupling Conditions

McMurry coupling is one of the most useful and convenient tools for the preparation of pi-conjugated molecules. However, for the synthesis of strained macrocycles containing ethynylene linkages, reduction of ethynylene to vinylene linkage sometimes took place. Especially, for the synthesis of macrocyclic pi-extended thiophene hexamers using McMurry coupling of dialdehyde 1 composed of three thienylene, two ethynylene, and two formyl groups, reduction of ethynylenes to vinylenes often takes place to produce unique products in a one-pot procedure, depending on very small steric and electronic effects such as reaction temperature, amounts of titanium reagent, and substituents of thiophene hexamers. The attractive structures and functional properties of reduced thiophene hexamers have been determined using X-ray analysis and OFET measurements.