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Synthesis

Chemistry In Pictures

Chemistry in Pictures: Porphyrin pellets

by Manuel Morone
June 18, 2025
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About three dozen fairly uniform glittering blue lumps of 5,10,15,20-tetraphenylporphyrin sitting in a Buchner funnel.
Credit: Submitted by Yogesh Kumar Maurya

Porphyrin compounds take on vibrant shades of color thanks to their π electrons. The network of double bonds—also known as a π-conjugated aromatic system—going around 5,10,15,20-tetraphenylporphyrin (see structure below) interacts so strongly with visible light that its crystals shimmer a deep blue. Perhaps more striking, under ultraviolet light, the pellets glow fluorescent orange, also thanks to those π electrons. Yogesh Kumar Maurya, a postdoc in Aurelio Mateo-Alonso’s lab at the Basque Center for Macromolecular Design and Engineering, synthesized these crystals as part of his project on π-conjugated aromatic systems that are even larger than this one.

The structure of 5,10,15,20-tetraphenylporphyrin with a porphyrin ring in the middle and four phenyl rings extending off the sides in evenly spaced positions around the ring.
About three dozen fairly uniform fluorescent orange lumps of 5,10,15,20-tetraphenylporphyrin sitting in a Buchner funnel.
Credit: Submitted by Yogesh Kumar Maurya

Submitted by Yogesh Kumar Maurya. Follow him @yogesh_maurya_ on X, formerly Twitter, and @y0gesh_ on Instagram.

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