Designing a phosphino-thiosemicarbazone ligand capable to stabilize coinage metal ions.

Thiosemicarbazones are interesting organic skeletons due to their great coordinative versatility, their interesting biological and pharmacological properties, as well as their structural diversity. However, the isolation of their monovalent metal complexes, such as Cu(I), Ag(I) or Au(I), is a partially studied field, since co-ligands with soft donor atoms such as phosphines, are needed.

In this context, our research group has been studying the design of a new family of ligands capable of stabilising coinage complexes without the need for auxiliary co-ligands. To this end, it was decided to incorporate a phosphorus atom into the structure of a thiosemicarbazone ligand. This work presents the design, synthesis and structural characterisation of a new phosphino-thiosemicarbazone ligand.