Novel meso‐substituted ferrocene‐appended porphyrins: Synthesis, characterization, and electrochemical evaluation

Abstract

This paper focuses on the synthesis of the novel ferrocene‐appended porphyrin architectures and their zinc metal complexes. Tetraferrocenylporphyrins are a class of organometallic compounds where the porphyrin core is functionalized with a ferrocenyl unit at each of the four meso positions. Tetraferrocenylporphyrin derivatives were synthesized via a direct tetramerization reaction between some ferrocene carboxaldehyde derivatives and pyrrole in the presence of BF3·Et2O as an efficient catalyst. Moreover, a metalation reaction between tetraferrocenylporphyrin derivatives and zinc acetate was applied in the synthesis of related zinc complexes. The structures of the new organometallic compounds were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), 1H NMR, 13C NMR, UV–vis, and CHNS analyses. The redox‐active properties of the synthesized compounds were characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV) analysis.