Building blocks for the construction of large chloro-functionalized, hexagonal oligophenylene cycles

The synthesis of a variety of kinked oligophenylene building blocks is desc ribed. The synthetic strategy is repetitive, utilizes the Suzuki cross-coup ling protocol, and involves potentially bifunctional building blocks (modul es) which carry one functional group for coupling and one group which serve s as place holder. Alter the coupling, the placeholder is converted into a coupling functionality for the next growth step. The building blocks also c arry chloro-substituents which are unaffected by all transformations. For o ne of the large building blocks it is shown that it actually can be cyclize d into an oligophenylene macrocycle with a chloro-substituent at each corne r and a pair of hexyl chains at each side.