Binding of scandium ions to metalloporphyrin-flavin complexes for long-lived charge separation.

A porphyrin-flavin-linked dyad and its zinc and palladium complexes (MPor-Fl: 2-M, M=2 H, Zn, and Pd) were newly synthesized and the X-ray crystal structure of 2-Pd was determined. The photodynamics of 2-M were examined by femto- and nanosecond laser flash photolysis measurements. Photoinduced electron transfer (ET) in 2-H2 occurred from the singlet excited state of the porphyrin moiety (H2 Por) to the flavin (Fl) moiety to produce the singlet charge-separated (CS) state (1) (H2 Por(.+) -Fl(.-) ), which decayed through back ET (BET) to form (3) [H2 Por]*-Fl with rate constants of 1.2×10(10) and 1.2×10(9)  s(-1) , respectively. Similarly, photoinduced ET in 2-Pd afforded the singlet CS state, which decayed through BET to form (3) [PdPor]*Fl with rate constants of 2.1×10(11) and 6.0×10(10)  s(-1) , respectively. The rate constant of photoinduced ET and BET of 2-M were related to the ET and BET driving forces by using the Marcus theory of ET. One and two Sc(3+) ions bind to the flavin moiety to form the Fl-Sc(3+) and Fl-(Sc(3+) )2 complexes with binding constants of K1 =2.2×10(5)  M(-1) and K2 =1.8×10(3)  M(-1) , respectively. Other metal ions, such as Y(3+) , Zn(2+) , and Mg(2+) , form only 1:1 complexes with flavin. In contrast to 2-M and the 1:1 complexes with metal ions, which afforded the short-lived singlet CS state, photoinduced ET in 2-Pd⋅⋅⋅Sc(3+) complexes afforded the triplet CS state ((3) [PdPor(.+) -Fl(.-) (Sc(3+) )2 ]), which exhibited a remarkably long lifetime of τ=110 ms (kBET =9.1 s(-1) ).
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