Ferrocene based Schiff bases and their complexes: Synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation

Two new Schiff base ligands were synthesized by the reaction of ferrocenyl aniline with aromatic aldehydes which were used for the formation of copper, nickel, and cobalt complexes. The synthesized compounds were characterized by elemental analysis, UV–Visible, FTIR, ¹H, and ¹³CNMR Spectroscopy. The synthesized compounds were screened for various biological activities. The compounds showed moderate to significant activities. From the result, it was clear that metal complexes exhibited significantly better activities than their parent ligands. For anti-bacterial activities, the disk diffusion method was used. In all synthesized compounds, Nickel complexes showed higher results against S. setubal. In anti-fungal activities, Sb1Ni^(II) and Sb2Cu^(II) showed good results against M. species and F. solani respectively. Copper complexes of both Schiff bases showed good anti-diabetic and antioxidant activities. Copper Complex (Sb1, Sb2) exhibited considerable inhibition against α-Amylase (50.12 %, 33.20 %), Urease (49.12 %, 47.20 %), and Lipase (49.12 %, 42.20 %) as well as remarkable antioxidant activities (45.22 % and 52.12 %) in DPPH assay respectively.