Structural elucidation of a few electron-deficient porphyrin/fullerene cocrystallates: Effect of fullerene on the porphyrin ring conformation

Free-base porphyrins with localized NH protons. Can substituents alone stabilize the elusive cis tautomer?

The elusive cis tautomer of free-base porphyrins has recently been isolated and structurally characterized in the form of a supramolecular complex. The question as to whether a suitable set of peripheral substituents might lead to a stable cis tautomer in the absence of supramolecular interactions, however, remains unanswered and is one we have attempted to address here by means of density functional theory calculations. The fact that many antipodally β-tetrasubstituted tetraphenylporphyrin derivatives exhibit localized central protons attached to the β-unsubstituted pyrrole rings led us to surmise that β-tetrasubstitution of adjacent pyrrole rings might lead to a porphyrin cis tautomer, an idea that proved fruitful. Indeed, for the "adjacently" substituted tetraphenylporphyrin derivative H2[adj-(CF3)4(CH3)4TPP], the global energy minimum proved to be a highly saddled cis tautomer, with the trans tautomer about 0.07 eV higher in energy. It is important to underscore, however, that the asymmetric β-substitution pattern is far from the only factor contributing to the stability of the cis tautomer for this porphyrin. A strongly saddled conformation resulting from meso-β steric interactions also helps alleviate the repulsion between the two central NH protons, thereby stabilizing the cis tautomer relative to the trans.

Ring-strain release in neutral and dicationic 7,8,17,18-tetra-bromo-5,10,15,20-tetra-phenyl-porphyrin: crystal structures of C44H26Br4N4 and C44H28Br4N4 (2+)·2ClO4 (-)·3CH2Cl2

Two porphyrin complexes were studied to determine the effects of protonation on ring deformation within the porphyrin. The porphyrin 7,8,17,18-tetra-bromo-5,10,15,20-tetra-phenyl-porphyrin, C44H26Br4N4, was selected because the neutral species is readily doubly protonated to yield a dication, which was crystallized here with perchlorate counter-ions as a di-chloro-methane tris-olvate, C44H28Br4N4 (2+)·2ClO4 (-)·3CH2Cl2. The centrosymmetric neutral species is observed to have a mild 'ruffling' of the pyrrole rings and is essentially planar throughout; intra-molecular N-H⋯N hydrogen bonds occur. In contrast, the dication exhibits considerable deformation, with the pyrrole rings oriented well out of the plane of the porphyrin, resulting in a 'saddle' conformation of the ring. The charged species forms N-H⋯O hydrogen bonds to the perchlorate anions, which lie above and below the plane of the porphyrin ring. Distortions to the planarity of the pyrrole rings in both cases are very minor. The characterization of the neutral species represents a low-temperature redetermination of the previous room-temperature analyses [Zou et al. (1995 ▸). Acta Cryst. C51, 760-761; Rayati et al. (2008 ▸). Polyhedron, pp. 2285-2290], which showed disorder and physically unrealistic displacement parameters.