Atropisomers of meso Tetra(N-Mesyl Pyrrol-2-yl) Porphyrins: Synthesis, Isolation and Characterization of All-Pyrrolic Porphyrins

Atropisomerism has been observed in a variety of biaryl compounds and meso-aryl substituted porphyrins. However, in porphyrins, this phenomenon had been shown only with o-substituted 6-membered aromatic groups at the meso-position. We show herein that a 5-membered heteroaromatic (N-mesyl-pyrrol-2-yl) group at the meso-position leads to atropisomerism. In addition, we report a ‘one-pot’ synthetic route for the synthesis of ‘all-pyrrolic’ porphyrin (APP) with several N-protection groups (Boc, Cbz, Ms and Ts). Among these groups, we found that only the Ms group gave four individually separable atropisomers of meso-tetra(N-Ms-pyrrol-2-yl) porphyrin. Furthermore, the reductive removal of Cbz- was achieved to obtain meso-tetra(pyrrol-2-yl) porphyrin. Thus, our synthetic procedure provides an easy access to a group of APPs and stable atropisomers, which is expected to expand the application of novel APP-based materials.