Diverting metal site in flavin-copper complexes for nanoparticle synthesis

Abstract

The current study describes judiciously designed flavin analogues that divert metal coordination to engender structurally distinct, discrete flavin-copper complexes and utilize them to generate morphologically distinct cuprous oxide nanoparticles. The ligand design encompasses a carboxylic pendant at the C7 or N10 position of the flavin core structure to divert the coordinating copper ion, resulting in distinct mononuclear dimeric flavin-copper complexes. Furthermore, the structurally distinct complexes were used to generate size-variant and morphologically distinct cuprous oxide nanoparticles. The present study offers a simpler yet elegant design strategy to create distinct complex formations extended to nanoparticle formation