Abstract
The interest in assembling porphyrin derivatives is widespread and is accounted by the impressive impact of these suprastructures of controlled size and shapes in many applications from nanomedicine and sensors to photocatalysis and optoelectronics. The massive use of porphyrin dyes as molecular building blocks of functional materials at different length scales relies on the interdependent pair properties, consisting of their chemical stability/synthetic versatility and their quite unique physicochemical properties. Remarkably, the driven spatial arrangement of these platforms in well-defined suprastructures can synergically amplify the already excellent properties of the individual monomers, improving conjugation and enlarging the intensity of the absorption range of visible light, or forming an internal electric field exploitable in light-harvesting and charge-and energy-transport processes. The countless potentialities offered by these systems means that self-assembly concepts and tools are constantly explored, as confirmed by the significant number of published articles related to porphyrin assemblies in the 2015–2019 period, which is the focus of this review.
Highlights
The aggregation of porphyrins and metallo-porphyrins as well as their natural or synthetic derivatives is an important issue that has been actively studied for many decades [1,2,3,4]
This contrasts with the porphyrin content in the microtubes, which is only 0.22% of that of the fibers/spheres mixtures
We report on two recent examples of discotic molecules, whose aggregation mode and final morphology is strictly dependent on the solvent
Summary
The aggregation of porphyrins and metallo-porphyrins as well as their natural or synthetic derivatives is an important issue that has been actively studied for many decades [1,2,3,4]. The possibility of self-organizing these bio-inspired dyes into various well-defined nanoarchitectures [8] is being thoroughly explored in material science due to their important applications [9,10,11] These tetrapyrrolic macrocycles are optimal building blocks for the smart assembly of supramolecular systems. Since the early seminal works of Robert Pasternack and others, it is clear that the propensity of porphyrins to form definite aggregates is determined by their physical properties, in terms of presence and charge type, the nature of peripheral groups and central metal atom, and its coordination state Another important issue is the nature and the composition of the media in which the macrocycles are solubilized such as polarity, hydrogen-bonding ability, ionic strength, temperature, and pH. The abundant literature has been divided in different sections based on the preparation methodology used
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