Self-assembly of a novel series of hetero-duplexes driven by donor-acceptor interaction

The self-assembly of a novel series of donor-acceptor interaction-driven artificial hetero-duplexes in organic media has been described. Four linear compounds 1a-1d, bearing two to five electron rich 1,5-dioxynaphthalene units connected by the tetra(ethylene glycol) linker, respectively, have been prepared and used as donors, while eight compounds 2a-2d, 13-16, bearing one to four electron deficient pyromellitic diimide, 1,4,5,8-naphthalene-tetracarboxydiimide, or perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxydiimide units, respectively, have been used as acceptors. The structure of the hetero-duplexes has been characterized by the ¹H NMR, UV-vis spectroscopy and vapor pressure osmometry. It is revealed that the binding stability of the duplexes vary greatly, depending on the length and structure of the monomers and also the solvent, and hetero-duplex 1d·2d displays a maximum association constant of ca. 1.0×10⁴ M⁻¹ in chloroform.