Because of their unique cyclic architectures, tunable electronic properties, and supramolecular chemistries, cycloparaphenylenes (CPPs) have the potential to act as a new class of ligands for coordination cages, metal-organic frameworks, and small-molecule transition-metal complexes. However, currently there is no general strategy to coordinate the cyclic framework to a variety of metal centers. We report here a general and scalable synthetic strategy to embed 2,2'-bipyridine units into the backbone of CPPs. We use this approach to synthesize a 2,2'-bipyridine-embedded [8]CPP, which we show can successfully coordinate to both Pd(II) and Ru(II) metal centers. The resulting coordination complexes, a Pd(II)-nanohoop dimer and a bis(bipyridyl)ruthenium(II)-functionalized nanohoop, show unique solid-state and photophysical properties. This work provides a proof of concept for a general strategy to use nanohoops and their derivatives as a new class of ligands.

Addition of the bipyridyl‐embedded cycloparaphenylene nanohoop bipy[9]CPP to [Fe{H2B(pyz)2}] (pyz=pyrazolyl) produces the distorted octahedral complex [Fe(bipy[9]CPP){H2B(pyz)2}2] (1). The molecular structure of 1 shows that the nanohoop ligand contains a non‐planar bipy unit. Magnetic susceptibility measurements indicate spin‐crossover (SCO) behaviour with a T1/2 of 130 K, lower than that of 160 K observed with the related compound [Fe(bipy){H2B(pyz)2}2] (2), which contains a conventional bipy ligand. A computational study of 1 and 2 reveals that the curvature of the nanohoop leads to the different SCO properties, suggesting that the SCO behaviour of iron(II) can be tuned by varying the size and diameter of the nanohoop.

Addition of the bipyridyl‐embedded cycloparaphenylene nanohoop bipy[9]CPP to [Fe{H2B(pyz)2}] (pyz=pyrazolyl) produces the distorted octahedral complex [Fe(bipy[9]CPP){H2B(pyz)2}2] (1). The molecular structure of 1 shows that the nanohoop ligand contains a non‐planar bipy unit. Magnetic susceptibility measurements indicate spin‐crossover (SCO) behaviour with a T1/2 of 130 K, lower than that of 160 K observed with the related compound [Fe(bipy){H2B(pyz)2}2] (2), which contains a conventional bipy ligand. A computational study of 1 and 2 reveals that the curvature of the nanohoop leads to the different SCO properties, suggesting that the SCO behaviour of iron(II) can be tuned by varying the size and diameter of the nanohoop.