This paper is concerned with the synthesis of 1,8,9,16-tetrahydroxytetraphenylene (
3a) via copper(II)-mediated oxidative coupling, its resolution to optical antipodes, and its conversion to 1,8,9,16-tetrakis(diphenylphosphino)tetraphenylene (
3b). On the basis of these chiral "linear" building blocks, three rodlikechiral complexes, triblock (
R,
R,
R,
R)-
17 and (
S,
S,
S,
S)-
20 and pentablock (
R,
R,
R,
R,
R,
R,
R,
R)-
22, wereconstructed. As a hydrogen bond donor, racemic and optically active
3a was allowed to assemble withlinear acceptors to afford highly ordered structures. A 1:1 adduct of 4,4'-bipyridyl and (±)-
3a exists in adimeric form of
3a linked by 4,4'-bipyridyl through hydrogen bonds. Pyrazine serves as a short linker betweenachiral parallel chains each formed by (±)-
3a, while self-assembly of homochiral
3a into alternate parallelchains occurs in the adduct of 5,5'-dipyrimidine with (±)-
3a. Self-assembly of (
S,
S)-
3a or (
R,
R)-
3a with4,4'-dipyridyl yielded a packing of chiral double helical chains formed by chiral tetrol
3a molecules. A novelchiral ligand, (
S,
S)-
23, derived from
3a was used in the asymmetric catalytic hydrogenation of
mages/gifchars/alpha.gif" BORDER=0>-acetamidocinna
mate, yielding up to 99.0% ee and 100% conversion.