We nervily propose that in this process, the tricoordinate complex
1·(3)F
- (red curve in
Fig. 3a and
Fig. 4) was generated first, which slowly became the pentacoordinate complex
1·(5)F
- (green curve in
Fig. 3a and
Fig. 4) [
34]. Thereupon, density functional theory (DFT) calculations of 1, 1·(3)F
- and 1·(5)F
- were carried out to gain insight into the conformation-dependence of the absorption spectrum (
Fig. 5). Using DFT at the B3LYP/6-31 G(d) level, the molecular geometries of
1,
1·(3)F
- and
1·(5)F
- were optimized. Comparing to
1·(3)F
-, the most stable structure of
1·(5)F
-, optimized at B3LYP/6-31 G(d), exhibited distorted conformation, wherein
o-C-H in the thiophene of
1·(5)F
- showed effective interactions for F
- (
Fig. 4). The difference between the relative energies of
endo-
1 and
exo-
1 is 0.88 kcal/mol (
Fig. 5). However, upon F
- binding to form
1·(3)F
- and
1·(5)F
-, the energy difference is increased to 6.76 kcal/mol. In addition,
1·(3)F
- shows a hypochromatic shift (
λabs = 528 nm) and
1·(5)F
- has a remarkable bathochromic shift (
λabs = 563 nm) in comparison with that of BONEPY
1 (
λabs = 545 nm) as described above. These experimental and theoretical results indicated that the extra hydrogen bonding C-H···F in
1·(5)F
- further stabilize this structure and lead to a lower relative energy of
1·(5)F
-, comparing to that of
1·(3)F
-. So,
1·(3)F
- and
1·(5)F
- are thought to be the solution-state [1 + 1]-type complex in this work, which are good agreement with the recent reported paper (Fig. S3 in Supporting information), even though containing a [2 + 1]-type complex in the solid state wherein the hydrogen bonding
o-C-H···Cl really exist [
35]. Moreover, the
1H NMR spectra exhibited more evident anion-binding modes of
1 upon the addition of TBAF in CD
2Cl
2 at 20 ℃ (
Fig. 6). Due to the shield from the full effect of the applied field by their surrounding electrons [
36], the chemical shifts in
1·(3)F
- and
1·(5)F
- are wellknown to be lower than those in 1H NMR spectrum of dye 1 (
Fig. 6). By increasing the amounts of the added F
- (up to 4.0 equiv.), two kinds of gradual shifts of the bridging CH
a and the thienyl CH
b signals were obviously observed, and were shifted by anion binding to the downfield region. The bridging CH
a and the thienyl CH
b signals between dye
1 and pyrrole-inverted complex
1·(3)F
- were shifted from 6.35 and 7.13 ppm to 7.49 and 7.63 ppm, respectively, upon the addition of 0.50 equiv. of TBAF, and upon the addition of 4.0 equiv. of TBAF, to 7.81 and 7.91 ppm for
1·(5)F
-, respectively, with increasing integrals. Addition, in comparison with the hydrogen signals for two aromatic rings of dye
1 in the
1H NMR spectrum, the complexes (
1·(3)F
- and
1·(5)F
-) showed three sets of distinct hydrogen signals (H
d-f).