Theoretical investigation of the stacking interactions between curved conjugated systems and their interaction with fullerenes

Herein, we perform a M06-2X/6-311G investigation of the homo and mixed dimers formed between corannulene, sumanene, and pentaindenocorannulene; also, their complexes with C60 and C70 were studied. Despite the lower area of sumanene, the interaction of the sumanene-dimer is stronger that of the corannulene-dimer because of CH–π interactions. For mixed-dimers, when the concave and convex sides perfectly match the interactions are similar to those of the homodimers. However, when the concave area is larger than the convex one, CH–π interactions become important and perfect stacking is lost. The interaction between pentaindenocorannulene-C60 is twice that of corannulene-C60, and ΔG298 = −10.8 kcal/mol. Thus, pentaindenocorannulene is a better choice to catch C60.