Wen-kai's work on synthesis and investigation of multimodal mechanophore bicyclo[2.2.0]hexene (BCH) has been published on JACS.
In this work, the structural simplicity and relatively low molecular symmetry of BCH mechanophore was leveraged to demonstrate the idea of multimodal activation. By using three BCH regioisomers, the mechanical force is applied across distinctive C–C bonds to trigger different reaction pathways, entailing retro-[2+2] cycloreversion, 1,3-allylic migration, and retro-4π ring-opening reactions, respectively. The discovery of the BCH mechanophore highlights an emergent possibility to access diversified reactivity with reactions of dissimilar mechanisms.
