A combination of experimental and computational studies on a new oxamido bridged dinuclear copper(II) complex

Abstract

Reaction of N,N′-bis(2-pyridylmethyl)oxamide (H2L), and copper(II)nitrate trihydrate in 1:2 M proportion in methanol generates oxamido bridged dimeric copper(II) compound, [Cu2L(H2O)2(NO3)2]H2O (1a.H2O) in good yield. 1a.H2O has been characterized by C, H and N microanalyses, copper estimation, FT-IR, UV–Vis and room temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements. The X-ray crystal structure of 1a.H2O has been determined. Bond Valence Sum (BVS) analysis was undertaken to assign the oxidation state of each copper center in 1a. Thermal behavior of 1a.H2O has been studied by TGA. Electrochemical studies on 1a.H2O shows single electron two step sequential reductions of Cu(II) to Cu(I) in dimethyl sulphoxide. Our optimized geometry of 1a as obtained through conceptual Density Functional Theory (DFT) corroborates well with that obtained from single crystal X-ray diffraction. TD-DFT method was also adopted to delve into the electronic properties of 1a. We have taken recourse to employ our optimized structure of 1a to investigate systematically the relative stabilities of various dimeric Cu(II) complexes obtained through variation of ligands bearing uni-donor anion through substitution of nitrate in 1a. The in vitro antibacterial potentiality of 1a.H2O was also tested against some bacterial cell lines, pathogenic to mankind.