Abstract
Since the first synthetic report in 2003 by Sakurai et al., sumanene (derived from the Indian ‘Hindi as well as Sanskrit word’ “Suman”, which means “Sunflower”), a beautifully simple yet much effective bowl-shaped C3-symmetric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon having three benzylic positions clipped between three phenyl rings in the triphenylene framework has attracted a tremendous attention of researchers worldwide. Therefore, since its first successful synthesis, a variety of functionalized sumanenes as well as heterosumanenes have been developed because of their unique physiochemical properties. For example, bowl-to-bowl inversion, bowl depth, facial selectivity, crystal packing, metal complexes, intermolecular charge transfer systems, cation–π complexation, electron conductivity, optical properties and so on. Keeping the importance of this beautiful scaffold in mind, we compiled all the synthetic routes available for the construction of sumanene and its heteroatom derivatives including Mehta’s first unsuccessful effort up to the latest achievements. Our major goal to write this review article was to provide a quick summary of where the field has been, where it stands at present, and where it might be going in near future. Although several reviews have been published on sumanene chemistry dealing with different aspects but this is the first report that comprehensively describes the ‘all-in-one’ chemistry of the sumanene architecture since its invention to till date. We feel that this attractive review article will definitely help the scientific community working not only in the area of organic synthesis but also in materials science and technology.
Highlights
Over a long period of time, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have attracted a tremendous attention of the scientific community because of their diverse potential applications ranging from the chemistry perspective to materials science and technology [1,2,3,4]
The synthesis of π-bowls is an extremely challenging job due to the presence of unusual strain in these types of molecules, the first synthetic breakthrough in this arena came into the picture in the late twentieth century when for the first time corannulene was reported by Barth et al [10] at the University of Michigan (USA) in 1966 [11]
Among the PAHs, the buckybowls are of significant importance because of the presence of unique inherent chirality originating either from the bowl structure itself, e.g., in hemifullerene or by the introduction of substituents or heteroatoms into the achiral bowls and as they are partial structures of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and fullerenes having bowl inversion activities as well as a tendency of crystal packing [17,18,19,20]
Summary
Over a long period of time, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have attracted a tremendous attention of the scientific community because of their diverse potential applications ranging from the chemistry perspective to materials science and technology [1,2,3,4]. Among the PAHs, the buckybowls are of significant importance because of the presence of unique inherent chirality (bowl-chirality) originating either from the bowl structure itself, e.g., in hemifullerene or by the introduction of substituents (e.g., trimethylsumanene) or heteroatoms (e.g., triazasumanene) into the achiral bowls and as they are partial structures of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and fullerenes having bowl inversion activities as well as a tendency of crystal packing [17,18,19,20] Since these chiral buckybowls contain stable convex or concave faces suitable for the generation of chiral molecular recognition sites which can be used for the construction of helical assemblies and have been used to coordinate the metal atom(s) [21,22,23]. The balland-stick representation, bowl fragments and the chemical structures of corannulene (1) and sumanene (2) are displayed in the Figure 1
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
