~ ~ _ _ _ _ _ _~Nonapentafulvalene Nonapentafulvalene (1) has been prepared by oxidative coupling of sodium cyclopentadienide (6) and sodium cyclononaietraenide (7) with CuCI, in THF, two-fold deprotonation of cyclopentadienyl-cyclononatetraene 8 to give dianion 16, and oxidative treatment of 16 with CuCI, (Schemm 2 and 3). Compound 1 is a highly reactive and thermally instable molecule, since valence isomerisation 1+ 17 proceeds easily even at low temperature (the half-life of 1 is ca. 30 min at -15" in CDCI,). NMR investigations show that nonapentafulvalene is an olefinic molecule with strongly alternating bond lengths, its nine-membered ring deviating strongly from planarity.Comparison of the NMR data of 1 with those of a series of sterically similar pentafulvenes 18 and nonafulvenes 19 (Tables 1 and 2) demonstrates that a ) with regard to the pentafulvene unit of 1, the cyclononatetraene ring acts as very weak electron-donating group, while b ) with regard to the nonafulvene unit of 1, the cyclopentadiene ring acts as weak electron-accepting group. So nonapentafulvalene may be regarded as a 'nonafulvene of inverse n-polarisation'.
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