Explorations in metalloporphyrin stereochemistry, physical properties and beyond.

A review of selected portions of our work in the area of porphyrin structure and physical characterization is presented. Topics covered include early work on periodic trends in first row transtion metalloporphyrins, a survey of electronic structure of iron derivatives including spin-state trends, ligand orientation effects and the elucidtion of unusual low-spin states for iron(II). A discussion of the different tlypes of high-spin iron(II) complexes and the effects of hydrogen bonding is given. A survey of nitric oxide (NO) derivatives is presented as well as a brief introduction into the use of nuclear resonance vibrational spectroscopy for the study of iron porphyrins and heme proteins.