C60-Fused Ketoamides Formation in Self-Sensitized Photo-Oxidation of 2-Fulleropyrrolines and Its Dynamic Study
Authors: Bo Jin , Rufang Peng , Tian Zheng 
Published: February 2020

Given the immense and potential applications in materials science and biological science, fullerenes and their derivatives have attracted extensive attention.1 A large number of chemical reactions have been developed to functionalize the fullerenes.2 In the past two decades, transition-metal-catalyzed C-H activation reaction has become one of the important strategies in the preparation of multifunctional and composite material.3 Most of its reactions use directing groups to form C60-fused heterocycles or C60-fused carbocycles, such as fulleropyrrolines,4 fullerotetrahydropyridazines,5 fulleroindolines,6 C60-fused dihydrofuran7 and C60-fused dihydrophenanthrenes8 and so on. Fulleropyrrolines are a kind of important fullerene derivative, which may have promising applications in designing and synthesizing novel organic photovoltaic materials due to the heterocyclic ring bearing a C=C bond, which can be utilized to construct a series of completely conjugated donor-acceptor (D-A) systems. Thus, it is still a demand to develop more practical approach to prepare fulleropyrrolines.9 We have recently investigated the palladium-catalyzed N-heteroannulation reaction of C60 with benzoyl hydrazone esters and unexpectedly synthesized N-unsubstituted 2-fulleropyrrolines. Notably, investigation of these reactions resulted in our discovery of the photo-oxidation of 2-fulleropyrrolines through enamine C=C bond cleavage to yield the corresponding dicarbonyl fullerene derivatives. Foot et al first reported the self-sensitized photooxidation of the C60-fused cycloadducts.10 Komatsu et al described the photochemical reaction of the open-cage fullerene derivative with singlet oxygen.11 Kabe et al also developed the synthesis of ring orifice in open-cage fullerenes by photooxygenation of azafulleroid.12 Nevertheless, the photo-oxidation of 2-fulleropyrrolines have never been explored. Herein, the self-sensitized photo-oxidation of 2-fulleropyrrolines was first discovered under very mild condition to yield a ketoamides fullerene derivative in high yields. The reaction kinetics of this self-sensitized photo-oxidation has been explored, which indicating that this photo-oxidation process is a first-order reaction and possessing low reaction activation energy (2.79 KJ/mol). Moreover, a possible mechanism related to the observed products was proposed

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