Research Aims to Create Versatile ‘Tapes’ Porphyrin molecules are essential to many biological processes, such as photosynthesis and respiration. Wilhelm Auwärter’s group is investigating these all-round talents at Technische Universität München. Normally, hydrogen attaches to the outer edges of the porphyrin core – named porphin, but other chemical entities can take the place of hydrogen, thereby changing the properties of the molecules. Alissa Wiengarten, PhD student at the TUM Department of Physics, heats a porphin powder in a vacuum chamber. In the process, individual porphin molecules leave the collective and adhere to a silver surface, where they react with each other and assemble into small groups – all by themselves. Single molecules can desorb from the hot surface, while chains of two, three or more porphin units cannot. In this way the scientists were able to assemble chains of up to 90 porphin units. Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2014/08/research-aims-create-versatile-%E2%80%98tapes%E2%80%99