Synthesis, structural, and thermal analyses of copper(II) and oxido-vanadium(IV) complexes of 4-bromo-2-(((5-chloro-2- hydroxyphenyl)imino)methyl)phenol REZA TAKJOO*†, JOEL T. MAGUE‡, ALIREZA AKBARI§ and S. YOUSEF EBRAHIMIPOUR{ jj †Department of Chemistry, School of Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran ‡Department of Chemistry, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA §Department of Chemistry, Payame Noor University (PNU), Tehran, Iran {Department of Chemistry, Payame Noor University (PNU), Tehran, Iran jjDepartment of Chemistry, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran (Received 29 June 2012; in final form 1 May 2013) Reaction of 4-bromo-2-(((5-chloro-2-hydroxyphenyl)imino)methyl)phenol (H 2 L) with Cu(OAc) 2 ·4H 2 O or VOSO 4 ·3H 2 O and 2,2′-bipyridine (bipy) or 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) in a 1 : 1 : 1 mol ratio led to [CuL(phen)] and [VOL(bipy)] which have distorted square pyramidal and octahedral geometries, respectively. The compounds were characterized by elemental analyses, FT-IR, UV–Vis, TGA, and X-ray diffraction. Their thermolyses have three stages: phen or bipy removal, separation of H 2 L minus chloride and bromide of H 2 L, and complete thermal decomposition to the metal oxide. Keywords: Oxido-vanadium(IV) complex; Copper(II) complex; TGA; Spectroscopy; Crystal struc- tures 1. Introduction Salicylidene compounds containing ONO donors have special potential in biochemistry [1, 2]. The biological effects of metal complexes of these compounds are more pronounced than those of their ligands [3, 4]. One of the main reasons for attention to these types of ligands is that in many metalloproteins, the central element is surrounded by asymmetric ligands and the targeted synthesis of these complexes can help us design appropriate mimics for the study of enzymes [5, 6]. As the salicylidene used in this work showed antimicrobial properties, it is expected that its metal complexes demonstrate significant bio- logical properties too [1]. In particular, complexes of vanadium and copper are interesting because they play significant roles in many biological processes [7]. Several reports have shown the bioactivities of copper complexes with CuL 1 L 2 formulas where L 1 and L 2 are the ONO Schiff base and the NN donor, respectively [8, 9]. These compounds are mimics for copper(II) protein species. The biological activity of these *Corresponding author. Email: rezatakjoo@yahoo.com Journal of Coordination Chemistry , 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00958972.2013.815343 Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis