450 Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn. Vol. 85, No. 4, 450467 (2012) © 2012 The Chemical Society of Japan Selected Papers Trimethylsumanene: Enantioselective Synthesis, Substituent Effect on Bowl Structure, Inversion Energy, and Electron Conductivity Shuhei Higashibayashi,1 Ryoji Tsuruoka,1 Yarasi Soujanya,2 Uppula Purushotham,2 G. Narahari Sastry,2 Shu Seki,3 Takeharu Ishikawa,4 Shinji Toyota,4 and Hidehiro Sakurai*1 1Research Center for Molecular Scale Nanoscience, Institute for Molecular Science, Myodaiji, Okazaki,Aichi 444-8787 2Molecular Modeling Group, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500607, India 3Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 4Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Okayama University of Science, 1-1 Ridaicho, Kita-ku, Okayama 700-0005 Received October 3, 2011; E-mail:
[email protected] C3 symmetricchiral trimethylsumanene was enantioselectively synthesized through Pd-catalyzed syn-selective cyclotrimerization of an enantiomerically pure iodonorbornenone, ring-opening/closing olefin metathesis, and oxidative aromatization where the sp3 stereogenic center was transmitted to the bowl chirality. Chiral HPLC analysis/resolution of the derivatives were also achieved. Based on theoretical calculations, the columnar crystal packing structure of sumanene and trimethylsumanene was interpreted as due to attractive electrostaticorCH³ interaction. According to the experimental and theoretical studies, the bowl depth and inversion energy were found to increase on methylation for sumanene in contrast to corannulene. Dissimilarities of the effect of methylation on the bowl structure and inversion energy of sumanene and corannulene were ascribed to differences in steric repulsion. A double-well potential model was fitted to the bowl structureinversion energy correlation of substituted sumanenes, with a small deviation.