Structural Diversity in Expanded Porphyrins

Inspired by the chemistry of porphyrins, in the last decade, a new research area where porphyrin analogues such as expanded, isomeric, and contracted porphyrins have been synthesized, and their chemistry has been exploited extensively. Expanded porphyrins are macrocyclic compounds where pyrrole or heterocyclic rings are connected to each other through meso carbon bridges. Depending on the number of pyrrole rings in conjugation or the number of double bonds linking the four pyrrole rings expanded porphyrins containing up to 64 pi electrons are reported in the literature. The interest in these systems lies in their potential applications as anion binding agents, as photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy (PDT), in antisensing applications, as MRI contrasting agents, and more recently, as material for nonlinear optical application. Expanded porphyrins containing more than four pyrrole or heterocyclic rings, such as sapphyrin (five pyrrole), rubyrin (six pyrrole), heptaphyrin (seven pyrrole), and octaphyrin (eight pyrrole), are reported in the literature. Furthermore, substituents on expanded porphyrins can be attached either at the meso carbons or at beta-pyrrole positions. beta-substituted expanded porphyrins generally adopt normal structure where all the pyrrole nitrogens point inward in the cavity 1, while the meso-substituted expanded porphyrins exhibit normal 2, inverted 3, fused 4, confused 5, and figure eight 6 conformations. The conformation of expanded porphyrin is dependent on the nature of the linkage of the heterocyclic rings, the nature and the number of the heteroatoms present in the cavity, and the state of protonation. It is possible to change one conformation to another by varying temperature or by simple chemical modification, such as protonation by acids. An understanding of the structure-function correlation in expanded porphyrins is an important step for designing these molecules for their potential applications. In this context, even though several meso aryl expanded porphyrins are reported in literature, there is no comprehensive understanding of structural diversity exhibited by them. In this Account, an attempt has been made to provide a systematic understanding of the conditions and circumstances that lead to various conformations and structures. Specifically, the structural diversities exhibited by five pyrrolic macrocycles to ten pyrrolic macrocycles are covered in this Account. In pentapyrrolic systems, sapphyrins, N-fused, and N-confused pentaphyrins are described. It has been shown that the positions of the heteroatom affect the conformation and in turn the aromaticity. In hexapyrrolic systems, rubyrins and hexaphyrins are covered. The conformation of core-modified rubyrins was found to be dependent on the number and nature of the heteroatom present inside the core. Further, in the hexapyrrolic systems, an increase in the number of meso carbons from four (rubyrin) to six (hexaphyrin) increases the conformational flexibility, where different types of conformations are observed upon going from free base to protonated form. Heptapyrrolic and octapyrrolic expanded porphyrins also exhibit rich structural diversity. Octaphyrins are known to exhibit figure eight conformation, where the macrocycle experiences a twist at the meso carbon, losing aromatic character. By suitable chemical modification, it is possible to avoid the twist, and planar 34 pi core-modified octaphyrins have been reported that show aromatic character and obey the (4 n + 2) Hückel rule. The structural diversity exhibited by nine pyrrolic macrocycles (nonaphyrins) and ten pyrrolic macrocycles (decaphyrins) are also described.