A glance on immobilisation of porphyrins on solid support and potential future research

Porphine is the simplest form of porphyrin, made up from four pyrrolic compounds, connected by methyne bridges. All porphyrin and its derivatives do have colours. Reduced form of porphyrins has dark or blue colour whilst uncharged porphyrins are red in colour. Porphyrins and its derivatives can be synthetically synthesized as well as naturally found in nature. The present of substituents and substituents arrangement directly influence the light absorbance and redox activities. Thereby, porphyrins are frequently used in optoelectronics and photovoltaics applications. This paper reviews the available methods to synthesis meso-substituted porphyrins. Three conditions of porphyrins immobilisation through chain-growth polymerisation, namely electrochemical polymerization, molecular self-assembly and stepwise-surface modification are highlighted and discussed. From the discussions, electrochemical polymerisation is suggested as the potential method for future project. It is expected that the light absorption re...