Electron-Triggered Metamorphism in Porphyrin-Based Self-Assembled Coordination Polymers

Viologen-centered
electron transfer is used to trigger a complete
dissociation of a porphyrin-based supramolecular architecture. In
the oxidized state, self-assembly is induced by iterative association
of individual porphyrin-based tectons. Dissociation of the self-assembled
species is actuated upon changing the redox state of the bipyridium
units involved in the tectons from their dicationic state to their
radical cation state, the driving force of the disassembling process
being the formation of an intramolecularly locked conformation partly
stabilized by π-dimerization of both viologen cation radicals.