A double concave hydrocarbon buckycatcher

Double Diels-Alder addition of isocorannulenofuran to dibenzocyclooctadiyne followed by deoxygenation produces a molecular tweezers C60H28 with two corannulene pincers and a tetrabenzocyclooctatetraene tether. X-ray crystal structure determination of its inclusion complex with buckminsterfullerene C-60 provides experimental evidence for the importance of attractive concave-convex pi-pi interactions in the supramolecular chemistry of fullerenes with buckybowls. An association constant of 8600 +/- 500 M-1 was estimated for the complex formation by NMR titration experiment in toluene-d8.