The first chemical modification on the brand new endohedral HF@C60 is reported. In particular, the isomerization from optically pure (2S,5S)-cis-pyrrolidino[3,4:1,2][60]fullerene 2b to (2S,5R)-trans-pyrrolidino[3,4:1,2][60]fullerene 2b has been studied and compared with empty C60 (2a) and endohedral H2O@C60 (3). The comparative study shows a kinetic order for the isomerization process of H2O@C60 > HF@C60 > C60, thus confirming the effect of the incarcerated species on the zwitterionic intermediate stability.

•We prepared neutral or cationic cyclopentadienyl iron complexes using microwave technology.•We prepared neutral or cationic cyclopentadienyl iron complexes using flow chemistry technology.•The reaction times do not exceed 10 min.•These complexes constitute interesting starting materials to new derivatives of this kind.Two series of piano-stool iron(II) complexes bearing bidentate phosphine or mixed phosphorus–nitrogen ligands have been prepared upon reaction with CpFe(CO)2I or [CpFe(naphthalene)][PF6] under microwave irradiation or using flow chemistry.Since the introduction of microwave and flow technologies in chemistry, there has been tremendous growth in applications to organic chemistry but their use in organometallic synthesis (namely for the preparation of organometallic species) are still rare, and flow technology had no precedence in the literature for the synthesis of iron complexes.

The first total synthesis of (+)-mucosin has been completed allowing assignment of the absolute stereochemistry of the natural product. A zirconium induced co-cyclisation was utilised to install the correct stereochemistry of the four contiguous stereocentres around the unusual bicyclo[4.3.0]nonene core.

The temperature dependence of the single-molecule conductance of conformationally flexible alkanedithiol molecular bridges is compared to that of more rigid analogues which contain cyclohexane ring(s). Molecular conductance has been measured with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) at fixed gap separation by observing the stochastic formation of molecule bridges between a gold STM tip and substrate (the so-called “I(t)” technique). Under these conditions, the junction can be populated by a wide distribution of conformers of alkanedithiol molecular bridges and a strong temperature dependence of the single-molecule conductance is observed. By contrast the rigid analogues that contain cyclohexane ring(s), which cannot form the thermally accessible gauche rich conformers open to the alkanedithiols, show no dependence of the single-molecule conductance on temperature. This comparison demonstrates that it is the conformational flexibility and access to thermally populated higher energy conformers of the linear polymethylene (alkane) bridges which leads to the temperature dependence. By removing this possibility in the cyclohexane ring-containing bridges, this conformational gating is excluded and the temperature dependence is then effectively suppressed.

The first total synthesis of (+)-mucosin has been completed allowing assignment of the absolute stereochemistry of the natural product. A zirconium induced co-cyclisation was utilised to install the correct stereochemistry of the four contiguous stereocentres around the unusual bicyclo[4.3.0]nonene core.