Thermal Reaction of a Columnar Assembled Diacetylene Macrocycle

Reported is a macrocyclic diacetylene that assembled into columns to afford porous crystals. Heating this assembly initiated a topochemical polymerization of the preorganized diacetylene units to give covalent conjugated polydiacetylenes. These stable conjugated materials maintained permanent porosity as evidenced by their type I gas adsorption isotherms with CO2 (g). Such conjugated polymeric nanotubes could possess unusual properties for sensing and electronics.