Electronic and structural properties of the metalloporphyrin structural isomers: semiempirical AM1 and PM3 calculations

Semiempirical calculations using AM1 and PM3 have been performed on the zinc(II) and magnesium(II) complexes of nine structural isomers of tetrapyrrole macrocycles such as porphyrin, porphycene, corrphycene and hemiporphycene, N-confused porphyrin and other isomers that have not been synthesized. The optimized geometry and the bond parameters obtained compare favorably with results obtained from X-ray and spectral studies. Heats of formation, ionization potentials, HOMO-LUMO energy differences, dipole moments, and the splitting of HOMOs and LUMOs of the metal complexes of each of these isomers are also reported and compared with experimental results. The “four-orbital model” of Gouterman remains valid for the investigated structural isomers. The present study represents an unusually appropriate opportunity to study, via molecular orbital methods, the interaction between various metal ions, and the electronic and geometrical environment of the central cavity of the closely related isomeric macrocycles. The major outcome of this study is the verification of the expected differential behavior of metal ions employed in the present study as a sophisticated probe of cavity properties which also suggests that this procedure can be extended to other metal complexes. This study also serves as an interesting prototype for more elaborate ab initio calculations. However, such calculations on the presently investigated macrocyclic systems may have to be performed at a higher level than MP2 or DFT to account for the unusual delocalization, as suggested by a recent study by Schaefer and co-workers on delocalized [10]annulene (H.M. Sulzbach, H.F. Schaefer, W. Klopper and H.P. Luthi, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 118 (1996) 3519).