Bowl-shaped aromatic compounds, buckybowls (π bowls), are polyaromatic materials with three-dimensional carbon frameworks similar to fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. The bowls can be thermally inverted, which gives buckybowls a uniquely dynamic property. Although the simple dynamics of a single buckybowl, sumanene, have been understood, the behavior of the dimer, bisumanenyl, has hardly been elucidated owing to its complexity.

Shuhei Higashibayashi, Institute for Molecular Science, Okazaki, Japan, Toshikazu Hirao, Osaka University, Japan, and their colleagues have revealed the full dynamics of bisumanenyl by combining experimental NMR analysis and DFT calculations. The inversion of bowls and the rotation between the two bowls combine to give complex dynamics. The results show that the dominant of the two existing diastereomers is the one in which the pitches of the bowls are on opposite sides of the molecule (see picture).
This result will contribute to understanding the dynamics of advanced, flexible, three-dimensional, carbon materials.

• Investigation of the Dynamic Behavior of Bisumanenyl,
  Binod Babu Shrestha, Sangita Karanjit, Shuhei Higashibayashi, Toru Amaya, Toshikazu Hirao, Hidehiro Sakurai,
  Asian J. Org. Chem. 2015, 4, 62–68.
  DOI: 10.1002/ajoc.201402226