One-pot synthesis and characterization of Schiff base macrocyclic complexes as a potential bioactive core – a review

Schiff base macrocycles play a remarkable role in the advancement of modern coordination chemistry in light of their importance to various multidisciplinary research fields. Bioinorganic chemistry has grown tremendously and provides opportunities to use macrocyclic Schiff base metal complexes as therapeutic agents. Macrocyclic Schiff base complexes have been studied on account of their ability to coordinate a variety of metal ions, preparative accessibility and growing applicability in numerous fields. In view of their pharmacological or biological properties, metal complexes of Schiff base macrocycles opened up a new vista of prospects in synthetic organic chemistry. Various methods were embraced to develop macrocyclic Schiff base metal complexes, along with their pharmacological properties. One of the simplest and effective methods for macrocyclic synthesis is an in-situ approach where the appearance of a metal ion in the cyclization reaction increases the yield of the macrocyclic product. This review focuses on the one-pot synthesis of biologically significant Schiff base macrocyclic metal complexes reported from 2005-2021.