Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Porphyrins are a group of organic compounds of which many occur in nature, most well-known as the pigment in red blood cells. They are heterocyclic macrocycles characterised by the presence of four modified pyrrole subunits interconnected at their carbon atoms via methine bridges (=CH-). Porphyrins are aromatic, and they obey Hückel's rule for aromaticity in that they possess 4n+2 electrons (n=4 for the shortest cyclic path) that are delocalized over the macrocycle. The macrocycles, therefore, are highly-conjugated systems and, as a consequence, have very intense absorption in the visible region and therefore are deeply colored; the name porphyrin comes from a Greek word for purple.