Spectrophotometric determination of formation constants of copper(II) complexes with 2,2′-bipyridyl, 1,10-phenanthroline and their halides in methanol

Abstract

The redox mediator used in dye-sensitized solar cells present several disadvantages; several research groups have theorized the possible use of blue copper proteins as electron mediators, despite their high costs. Copper complexes that mimic blue copper proteins could represent an alternative as electronic transfer agent with lower costs.In this work, we conducted a spectrophotometric study of the speciation of copper(II) complexes with 2,2′-bipyridyl, 1,10-phenanthroline and their ternary complexes with chloride and bromide, at 303 K. For the copper–2,2′-bipyridyl complexes, the formation constants obtained are: log β110 = 7.57 ± 0.08, log β120 = 13.26 ± 0.11 and log β130 = 17.21 ± 0.14. For the ternary systems of copper–2,2′-bipyridyl with chloride or bromide, are: log β111 = 12.06 ± 0.06 and log β111 = 11.23 ± 0.01, respectively. Also, the formation constants obtained for the copper–1,10-phenanthroline complexes are log β110 = 4.21 ± 0.01 and log β120 = 7.24 ± 0.02. For the ternary systems of copper(II) with 1,10-phenanthroline and chloride or bromide, are: log β111 = 6.14 ± 0.04 and log β111 = 7.46 ± 0.03, respectively. Finally, the individual calculated electronic spectra of these species were obtained and compared to other copper complexes mimicking to blue copper proteins.