Supramolecular Porphyrin Assemblies: Photosynthetic Reaction Center Analogs and Porphyrin Networks

Abstract

Photophysical measurements were carried out in collaboration with Professor Dewey Holten and Robin Lammi at Washington University. The lifetimes for the initial photoexcited states of the triad, protected triad, and Zr(TTP)(TTP-NH 2) in a given solvent are the same within experimental error. This result means that an electron is not transferring to the monomeric spacer porphyrin in high yield. Presumably, the DeltaG for this process is too unfavorable. Instead, the excited zirconium bis(porphyrin) sandwich complex simply returns to the ground state. One way to improve upon this system would be to make the bridging porphyrin a better electron acceptor by replacing the mesityl substituents with pentafluorophenyl groups.