Initiating Electron Transfer in Doubly-curved Nanographene Upon Supramolecular Complexation of C 60

The formation of supramolecular complexes between fullerene C 60 and a molecular nanographene endowed with both positive and negative curvatures is described. The presence of a corannulene moiety and the saddle shape of the molecular nanographene allows the formation of complexes with 1:1, 1:2, and 2:1 stoichiometries. The association constants for the three possible supramolecular complexes were determined by  1 H NMR titration. Furthermore, the stability of the three complexes was calculated by theoretical methods that also predict the photoinduced electron transfer from the curved nanographene to the electron acceptor fullerene C 60 . Time-resolved transient absorption measurements on the ns-time scale shows that the addition of C 60 to  NG-1 solutions and photo-exciting them at 460 nm lead to the solvent-dependent formation of new species, in particular the formation of one-electron reduced form of C 60  in benzonitrile is observed.