Porphyrins – from diodes to enzymes

Using porphine derivative ligands for the preparation and functionalisation of porphyrins.

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It is hard to overestimate the importance of porphyrins in life sciences. Chlorophylls, Vitamin B12 and haem (in haemoglobin) are just a few examples of how essential these naturally occurring materials are to life.

Many researchers have focused on synthetic metal porphyrins because of their outstanding properties such as chemical and structural stability, chromaticity, electronic and optical properties, strong aromaticity and rich metal coordination chemistry.

In general, simple metal porphyrins are prepared by the direct interaction of metal salts with corresponding porphyrin ligands. Single porphyrin units allow added functionalization and conjugation in arrays by using alkene or alkyne type linkers, resulting in delocalized electronic structures. This unique characteristic allows porphyrins to play an important role in photovoltaics as near infrared dyes, nonlinear optical materials and electron-conducting molecular wires.[1-2]

 to enzymatic porphyrins, such as Coproporphyrin and Uroporphyrin and TPP, metal complexes are very important materials for every kind of photochemical, electronic and optical applications (Organic and Polymer Light Emitting Diodes (OLED and PLED) as well as dye sensitisers (fluorescent dyes, etc.). Metal porphyrins typically exhibit two sets of absorption bands in the neighbourhood of 550 nm and 400 nm.

Metalloporphyrins are used as effective catalysts in almost every research discipline, such as organic chemistry[3], electro catalysis[4] and biocatalysis[5] to name a few. Porphyrin-ligands are also of interest in MOF technology, especially if porphyrin linkers are functionalized with carboxylic or pyridine groups in the outer sphere.[5]

Porphyrins play an extremely important role in various biological systems in which they transport proteins, accept and donate electrons, and catalyse biochemical reactions.  For instance, after a series of reactions, uroporphyrinogen and coproporphyrinogen in the body will automatically oxidize to uroporphyrin 07-3350 CAS 10170-03-3 and 07-3410 CAS 15435-60-6 and coproporphyrin 07-0300 CAS 69477-27-6 and 07-0305. CAS 14643-66-4[6]

In the Coproporphyrin I isomer 07-0300 CAS 69477-27-6, the four propionic acid side groups are equidistant and the molecule is thus symmetric. In the Coproporphyrin III isomer 07-0305 CAS 14643-66-4 one of the pyrroles is inverted during the biosynthesis of the porphyrin ring structure, resulting in an asymmetric distribution of methyl and propionic acid side groups of the porphyrin molecule.

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