Sensing of chiral fullerenes by a cyclic host with an asymmetrically distorted pi-electronic component.

Upon inclusion complexation with a racemic mixture of chiral fullerene C76 ((+/-)-C76), a novel cyclic host (1Rh) composed of a chiral N-methylporphyrin (PNMe) and a methylrhodium porphyrin (PRh) exhibited at 20 degrees C a 1H NMR spectral profile with diastereoisomerically split signals due to the NH group of PNMe. In contrast, because of a faster guest exchange dynamics, metal-free reference 12H, under identical conditions, did not show any signature of such diastereoisomeric splitting. Owing to the excellent resolution (15.6 Hz) of the split NH signals, the complexation with 1Rh allowed for the accurate determination of the optical purity of C76. On the basis of the 1H NMR spectral profiles of 1Rh in toluene-d8 at 20 degrees C in the presence of enantiomer mixtures of C76 of different optical purities, an absolute Deltaepsilon value of 58.5 M-1 cm-1 at 330 nm was obtained for enantiomerically pure C76.