A macrocyclic hexanuclear iron(III) 18-metallacrown-6 compound, [Fe 6 (H 2 O) 6 (abshz) 6 ]·38H 2 O, has been prepared using a trianionic pentadentate ligand N-acetyl-5-bromosalicylhydrazidate (abshz 3− ) and characterized by X-ray diffraction. The crystal structure contains a neutral 18-member metallacrown ring consisting of six Fe(III) and six abshz 3− ligands. The 18-member metallacrown ring is formed by the succession of six structural moieties of the type [Fe(III)-N-N]. Due to the meridional coordination of the ligand to the Fe 3+ ion, the ligand enforces the stereochemistry of the Fe 3+ ions as a propeller configuration with alternating / forms. The disc-shaped hexanuclear ring shows at its largest diameter about 7.27 Å at entrance and about 9.80 Å at the center of the cavity. Antibacterial screening data showed that the iron metallacrown has strong antimicrobial activity against Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus.Keywords bioactivity, crystal structure, iron complex, metallacrown
INTRODUCTIONAs one type of macrocyclic polynuclear complexes, metallacrowns and its analogies have attracted considerable attention since the first report of metallacrown ether. [1] In the structure, metallacrowns [2] exhibit a cyclic hole generally analogous to crown ethers [3] with transition metal ions and a nitrogen atom replacing the methylene carbons. The presence of transition metal ions in the metallacrown ring leads to a class of molecules with features distinct from the simple organic crowns, such as strong visible absorption spectra, redox activity, magnetism, molecular recognition, and bioactivity.