Front Cover: Phosphine-Mediated Dimerization of Open-[60]Fullerenes (Chem. Asian J. 11/2024)

The cover image shows a self-assembled structure of two open-[60]fullerene dimers. The synthesis of the dimer requires the use of phosphine which in situ produces ylide and α-methylene carbonyl variants of an open-[60]fullerene monomer. Nevertheless, control experiments excluded reaction mechanisms via Wittig reaction and aldol condensation. Alternatively, the computational study suggested a betaine variant of the monomer as a nucleophile to realize intermolecular C–C bond formation. In this transformation, homo- and heterochiral dimers would be potentially yielded while a rate-determining step was suggested to be different from each other. More details can be found in article number e202400142 by Shu Okamoto, Yoshifumi Hashikawa, and Yasujiro Murata.