Materials and Nanoscience Seminar with Josef Michl. 

Porphene: a Porphyrin Analog of Graphene

Porphene is a two-dimensional polymer similar to graphene, but it consists of fused porphyrin rings instead of fused benzene rings.  Similarly as in monomeric porphyrin itself, the two protons in the center of the heterocyclic macrocycles in porphene can be replaced with divalent cations, producing metalloporphenes.  Since about 60 different metal ions have been inserted into monomeric porphyrins, and since a metal ion can carry up to two additional ligands above and below the ring, porphene is not a single polymer but a vast family of polymers with an identical conjugated pi-electron skeleton but finely tunable properties.  The talk will describe the synthesis and structure proof of porphene and some metalloporphenes, and mention a few of their potential uses.