Guest binding and new self-assembly of bisporphyrins

In organic medium, bisprophyrins 1-6 connected by aromatic linkers self-assemble via subtle forces such as van der Waals, pi-pi stacking, and CH/pi to form supramolecular dimers. The structures of bisporphyrin dimer 1.1 were discussed using our chemical shift simulation, revealing that 1.1 mainly adopts the self-complementary structure A. ESI mass experiments of the bisporphyrins showed that 1-4 form only the dimers; however, trimers as well as the dimers of 5 and 6 were observed in the gas phase. Thus, the assemblies of bisporphyrin 5 and 6 should adopt structure B, which still has a binding site to which another bisporphyrin can fit to form oligomeric structures. The dimerization constant of bisporphyrin 1 is dependent on the solvent polarity: the values decrease in the order of toluene > chloroform > 20% methanol-chloroform. The thermodynamic studies of the dimerization processes revealed that desolvation as well as pi-pi stacking interactions play a key role in the formation of the self-complementary dimers. The binding studies of bisporphyrin 1 with a variety of electron deficient aromatic guests 9-17 were carried out in chloroform. Soret and Q-bands of 1 showed the characteristic changes with the addition of guests 9-13 and 15, and large upfield shifts of their protons were observed in their complexation studies with (1)H NMR spectroscopy. These results suggested that the electron deficient aromatic guests bound within the cleft of bisporphyrin 1 via charge transfer as well as pi-pi stacking interactions between the guests and the porphyrin rings. The dimerization constant of 1.1 is much smaller than the association constant of 1.9, suggesting that the dissociation of dimer 1.1 can be regulated by binding of 9 within the cleft. The addition of 9 into the solution of 1.1 resulted in the quick dissociation of the dimer and the formation of 1.9.