Open Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2012, 2, 13-21 OJIC doi:10.4236/ojic.2012.22003 Published Online April 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ojic/ ) Synthesis and characterization of a novel schiff base metal complexes and their application in determination of iron in different types of natural water Mostafa M. H. Khalil 1* , Eman H. Ismail 1 , Gehad G. Mohamed 2 , Ehab M. Zayed 2 , Ahmed Badr 1 1 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt 2 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt Email: * khalil62@yahoo.com Received 23 October 2011; revised 20 January 2012; accepted 2 February 2012 ABSTRACT A novel, simple approach to the synthesis of macro- cyclic Schiff base ligand resulted from the condensa- tion of bisaldehyde and ethylenediamine was prepared (7, 8, 15, 16, 17, 18-hexahydrodibenzo (a, g) (14) an- nulene) (L) and its complexes were synthesized and characterized using different physicochemical studies as elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1 H NMR, conductivity, magnetic properties, thermal analysis, and their bio- logical activities. The spectroscopic data of the com- plexes suggest their 1:1 complexe structures which are investigated by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1 H NMR, conductivity, magnetic properties, thermal analysis, and their biological activities. The spectroscopic stu- dies suggested the octahedral structure for the all complexes. The spectroscopic data of the complexes suggest their structure in which (N 2 O 2 ) group act as a tetradentate ligand and two chlorides as monodentate ligands. Also electronic spectra and magnetic suscep- tibility measurements indicate octahedral structure of these complexes. The synthesized Schiff base and its metal complexes also were screened for their anti- bacterial and antifungal activity. Here we report the effect of a neutral chelating ligand on the complexa- tion with iron to determine it in different types of natural water using recovery test. The activity data show that the metal complexes to be more potent/ antibacterial than the parent Schiff base ligand against one or more bacterial species. Keywords: Novel Schiff Base; Transition Metal Complexes and Natural Water 1. INTRODUCTION A large number of Schiff bases and their complexes have been investigated for their interesting and important properties, such as their ability to reversibly bind oxygen [1], catalytic activity in the hydrogenation of olefines [2], photochromic properties [3,4] and complexing ability towards some toxic metals [5]. Schiff bases are a special class of ligands with a variety of donor atoms exhibiting interesting coordination modes towards various metals [6- 8]. The azomethine linkage in Schiff bases is responsible for the biological activities such as antitumor, antibacterial, antifungal and herbicidal activities [9]. Designing a sui- table polydentate Schiff base ligand to combine with a metal ion along with pseudohalide anion has opened a new area of synthesizing metal complexes of particular choice [10]. Such complexes are readily assembled from diamines and various salicylaldehyde derivatives and are amenable to combinatorial syntheses [11]. Metal Schiff base complexes have been well known for their easy synthesis, stability and wide application [12-14]. A large number of Schiff base (N 2 O 2 ) complexes have been re- ported so far, and their catalytic and biological properties have been studied intensively [15-21]. Numerous tech- niques were available in iron determination have been reported [22-24]. However, these techniques were tedious need time and rigid conditions. Also due to the very low concentrations of iron, lead and chromium in natural water samples, their determinations demand very sensitive analytical techniques including ET-AAS, ICP-MS, ICP- AES and XRF. However, relative to flame AAS, these techniques have some disadvantages such as its high cost, slowness and greater proneness to matrix interferences as well as their high sensitive advantages [25]. The present study was under taken to throw more light on the chela- tion behavior of Schiff base (L) towards some transition elements, which may help in more understanding of the mode of chelation of the new Schiff base towards metals and tried to used in the recovery test with a purity of more than higher than 96% for the metal ion. * Corresponding author. Published Online April 2012 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojic