Synthesis of Amidine Copper Complexes with First Row Transition Metal
Essential metals are crucial cellular components that play important roles in various biological processes. Our goal is to create less toxic Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI Contrast Agents by developing novel amidine copper-based complexes, using essential metal ions instead of non-essential Gadolinium metal. We successfully synthesized four complexes: Pyridimine-2-carboximidamide copper(II) chloride, 1, Pyridimine-2-carboximidamide copper(II) bromide, 2, Pyrazine-2-carboximidamide copper(II) chloride, 3, and Pyrazine-2-carboximidamide copper(II) bromide, 4 complexes. The important feature of these complexes is the fact that they are isomorphic. Isomorphic complexes are complexes with the same unit cell and space group but different structure. Also, the Pyridimine-2-carboximidamide copper(II) chloride, 1, gave rise to vanishing polymorphs (same complex in different unit cell) with one being monoclinic (still not reproducible) and the other being orthorhombic. Moving forward, we plan to calculate the yield and the energy difference in packing of these complexes to further understand factors that lead to them being isomorphic. Also, we plan on doing MRI measurements on these compounds and comparing them with commercially available MRI Contrast Agents.