The project entailed a detailed study of the properties of biomimetic oxo- and hydroxo/alkoxo-bridged dinuclear copper(II) pyrazole complexes. The chemistry of the complexes and their ability to undergo a reversible reduction/oxidation process coupled with oxygen transfer is of great interest, due to their potential applications in industrial catalytic oxygenation as well as their relevance to biological oxidation/oxygenation of organic substrates. The project’s proposed goals included: 1) optimization of the synthesis of dicopper(II) complexes, 2) exploring the synthesis and study of related new dicopper complexes, and 3) the study of their oxygenation/oxidation chemistry. Spectroscopic techniques, such as UV-Vis, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), were applied to the characterization studies of the complexes, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction for structure determination. Electrochemical studies were carried out in comparison to analogous biological copper-based enzymes and their synthetic models, while spectroscopic and gas chromatographic techniques applied to the systems reveal their catalytic processes. The results of the project are intended to be relevant to biological oxygen delivery systems.
