Thermal reaction of a columnar assembled diacetylene macrocycle.

Reported is a macrocyclic diacetylene that assembled into columns to afford porous crystals. Heating this assembly initiated a topochemical polymerization of the preorganized diacetylene units to give covalent conjugated polydiacetylenes. These stable conjugated materials maintained permanent porosity as evidenced by their type I gas adsorption isotherms with CO(2) (g). Such conjugated polymeric nanotubes could possess unusual properties for sensing and electronics.