Synthesis of a series of aromatic benziporphyrins and heteroanalogues via tripyrrane-like intermediates derived from resorcinol and 2-methylresorcinol.

Tripyrrane analogues were prepared by reacting resorcinol or 2-methylresorcinol with 2 equiv of an acetoxymethylpyrrole in the presence of p-toluenesulfonic acid and calcium chloride. Following removal of the benzyl ester protective groups, the resorcinol-derived benzitripyrrane was reacted with a pyrrole dialdehyde to give an aromatic hydroxyoxybenziporphyrin. However, furan and thiophene dialdehydes gave highly insoluble products that could not be fully characterized. The methylresorcinol-derived tripyrrane analogue reacted with pyrrole, furan, thiophene, and selenophene dialdehydes to give unstable porphyrinoids that were further oxidized with [bis(trifluoroacetoxy)iodo]benzene to give stable benziporphyrin derivatives. These oxidized benziporphyrins showed strongly diatropic properties by proton NMR spectroscopy where the differences in chemical shifts (Δδ) were >18 ppm in some cases. The selenophene-derived system was further characterized by X-ray crystallography, and these results showed that one of the pyrrole subunits in this crowded structure was tilted by 21° relative to the mean macrocyclic plane. The tripyrrolic system reacted with silver(I) acetate to give the corresponding silver(III) organometallic complex. Regioselective alkylation with methyl or ethyl iodide and potassium carbonate gave diastereomeric mixtures of N-alkyl derivatives, and the N-ethyl substitution products showed highly diastereotopic characteristics.