Synthesis of novel porphyrins cardanol based via cross metathesis

Cardanol – an alternative, sustainable, low-cost, largely available natural resource and obtained as by-product of the cashew industry – is used in this work as the starting material for the preparation of new molecular arrays containing porphyrin–cardanol hybrids through ruthenium catalyzed olefin cross metathesis reactions. Different Grubbs’ catalysts were used to perform the metathesis reactions but only one of the second generation of catalyst – the Ru-carbene catalyst C627 – was the most efficient for the preparation of new cardanol derivatives by simple olefin homo-cross-metathesis (HCM). Also, new class of porphyrin–cardanol hybrids obtained via HCM or via ring closing metathesis (RCM), in which one or two rings are in the same molecule, were also prepared.