Bidirectional Synthesis, Photophysical and Electrochemical Characterization of Polycyclic Quinones Using Benzocyclobutenes and Benzodicyclobutenes as Precursors

Abstract Quinones have widespread applications in view of their interesting chemical and photophysical features. On the other hand, benzocyclobutenes (BCBs) are generally masked reactive dienes suitable for the [4+2] cycloaddition reactions. Here, benzocyclobutenes and benzodicyclobutenes (BDCBs) were prepared and further reacted with benzoquinone and naphthoquinone in order to obtain some new polycyclic quinones with highly extended π systems, namely, 6‐bromo‐5,8‐dimethoxyanthracene‐1,4‐dione, 2,9‐dibromo‐1,4,8,11‐tetramethoxypentacene‐6,13‐dione, 9‐bromo‐7,10‐dimethoxytetracene‐5,12‐dione, 3,10‐dimethoxycyclobuta[ b ]anthracene‐1,5,8(2 H )‐trione, 6,10,17,21‐tetramethoxynonacene‐1,4,8,12,15,19‐hexaone, and 3,12‐dimethoxycyclobuta[ b ]tetracene‐1,5,10(2 H )‐trione. In addition to their spectroscopic characterization the new compounds are investigated by UV and fluorescence spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and DFT calculations.