Evaluation of the aromaticity of non-planar and bowl-shaped molecules by NICS criterion

• We evaluated aromaticity of corannulene and sumanene by NICSzz-scan method.
• Pentagon and hexagon rings of corannulene have antiaromatic and aromatic character.
• Pentagon and outer hexagon of sumanene have antiaromatic and aromatic character.
• Paratropic and diatropic induced ring currents are in concave more than convex face.
• Confirmation of more aromaticity of corannulene than sumanene by NICSzz criterion.

Nucleus independent chemical shift (NICS) criterion was used to gauge the amount of aromaticity in a lot of publications in two last decades. Non-planar molecules with many polygons in different sheets that make angle together have not been studied by this criterion. Perhaps, one ascribes this deficiency to NICS index, but we think it is concern to depauperation in evaluation methods. Therefore, in this work, we try to evaluate aromaticity of two fullerene substructures bowl-shaped molecules, namely corannulene and sumanene as typical non-planar molecules by using of the NICSzz-scan method. The gauge-independent atomic orbital (GIAO) NMR calculations were done at B3LYP/6-311 + G(d) level of theory. Energetic criterion as another tool for evaluation of the aromaticity of compounds was used and discussed. Results shows that pentagon and hexagon rings in corannulene have antiaromatic and aromatic character, respectively and in sumanene, pentagon and outer hexagon rings have antiaromatic and aromatic character, respectively. However, the picture obtained based on the NICS computations did not provide any insight towards the real nature of current density in the corannulene and sumanene.

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