Self-assembly of supramolecular oligo-phenylene-ethynylene wires consisting of double Hamilton receptor modified OPE rods and a tetraphenylporphyrin cyanurate

The syntheses and characterizations of new oligo-phenylene-ethynylene (OPE) bridged bis-Hamilton receptors 8-9 and their linear H-bonding behaviour with a new cyanuric acid modified tetraphenylporphyrin (TPP) 13 are reported. The resulting rigid complexes consisting of an oligo-phenylene-acetylene wire and two terminating TPPs were characterized by H-1 NMR, UV/vis and fluorescence spectroscopies. The 1:2 compositions of the supramolecular complexes, the association constants K-n and the cooperativity of binding expressed by Scatchard plots and Hill coefficients eta(H) were determined by H-1 NMR titration experiments. The strength of the association constants K-n in CDCl3 at rt was found to be in a range of 10(5) and 10(6) mol(-1) dm(3) for the first complexation and 10(10)-10(12) mol(-1) dm(3) for the second complexation, which is rather strong. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.