Syntheses and Structural Investigations of Penta-Coordinated Co(II) Complexes with Bis-Pyrazolo-S-Triazine Pincer Ligands, and Evaluation of Their Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activities

Two penta-coordinated [Co((Morph)BPT)Cl(2)]; 1 and [Co((Pip)BPT)Cl(2)]; 2 complexes with the bis-pyrazolyl-s-triazine pincer ligands (Morph)BPT and (Pip)BPT were synthesized and characterized. Both (Morph)BPT and (Pip)BPT act as NNN-tridentate pincer chelates coordinating the Co(II) center with one short Co-N(s-triazine) and two longer Co-N(pyrazole) bonds. The coordination number of Co(II) is five in both complexes, and the geometry around Co(II) ion is a distorted square pyramidal in 1, while 2 shows more distortion. In both complexes, the packing is dominated by Cl…H, C-H…π, and Cl…C (anion-π stacking) interactions in addition to O…H interactions, which are found only in 1. The UV-Vis spectral band at 564 nm was assigned to metal–ligand charge transfer transitions based on TD-DFT calculations. Complexes 1 and 2 showed higher antimicrobial activity compared to the respective free ligand (Morph)BPT and (Pip)BPT, which were not active. MIC values indicated that 2 had better activity against S. aureus, B. subtilis, and P. vulgaris than 1. DPPH free radical scavenging assay revealed that all the studied compounds showed weak to moderate antioxidant activity where the nature of the substituent at the s-triazine core has a significant impact on the antioxidant activity.