BackgroundThe coordination chemistry of cadmium(II) with diamine ligands is of particular interest. The most common structure around cadmium(II) center in their complexes is tetrahedral, that is due the octet rule obeyed. Nevertheless, five and six-coordinated complexes are also well known. Now a day, many cadmium(II) complexes with chelate ligands were synthesized for their structural or applications properties. Antibacterial activities and DNA binding affinity of this class of cadmium complexes have attracted considerable interest.ResultsCadmium(II) complexes in dicationic form with general formula [Cd(dien)2]CdBr4 complex 1 (dien = diethylenetriamine) and [Cd(dipn)2]CdBr4 complex 2 (dipn = diproylenetriamine) were prepared and elucidated there chemical structures by elemental analysis, UV–Vis, IR, TG and NMR, additionally complex 1 structure was solved by X-ray diffraction study. The Cd(II) cation is located in a slightly distorted octahedral geometry while Cd(IV) anion is in tetrahedral geometry. High stability of the synthesized complexes confirmed by TG. Thermolysis of complex 1 revealed the formation of pure cubic nanoparticles CdO which was deduced by spectral analysis. The average size of CdO nanoparticles was found to be ~60 nm.ConclusionsTwo new Cd(II) complexes of general formula [Cd(N3)2]CdBr4 were made available. The structure of [Cd(dien)2]CdBr4 was confirmed by X-ray diffraction. Thermal, electro and spectral analysis were also investigated in this study. The direct thermolysis of such complexes formed a cubic CdO regular spherical nanoparticle with the ~60 nm average particle size.Graphical abstractORTEP for the complex 1