Crippling the C 70 fullerene: non-classical C 68 Cl 26 (OH) 2 and C 68 Cl 25 (OH) 3 with three heptagons and only fused pentagons via chlorination-promoted skeletal transformations.

High-temperature (440 °C) chlorination of C 70 with SbCl 5 promotes Stone-Wales transformations and loss of the C 2 fragment, which results in a non-classical C 68 Cl 28 partially hydrolyzed to C 68 Cl 26 (OH) 2 and C 68 Cl 25 (OH) 3 . X-ray diffraction reveals an unprecedented C 68 cage with three heptagons and 15 pentagons arranged in fused pairs and triples. The shortest possible transformation pathways include one C 2 loss step and four Stone-Wales transformation steps.