Mehdi Khorshidi

New centrosymmetric trinuclear zinc(II) complex {[Zn(μ-ONN)(μ2-O)(μ-OO)]2Zn} has been synthesized by the reaction of a potentially ONN tridentate Schiff base ligand, and N,N-dimethylethylendiamin, with Zn(OAc)2·2H2O in methanol, in the refluxed conditions and characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR and UV–Vis spectroscopy. Single crystal X-ray structure analysis reveals a trinuclear complex {[Zn(μ-ONN)(μ2-O)(μ-OO)]2Zn} with zinc(II) ions connected by three different bridges, (μ-ONN) of the Schiff base ligand, μ2-O and μ-OO of the acetate. The complex is centrosymmetric, with one of the Zn atoms located at the inversion center. While the central Zn(II) ion is six-coordinated, the coordination number of the other Zn(II) ions is five. Finally, the {[Zn(μ-ONN)(μ2-O)(μ-OO)]2Zn} complex was thermally decomposed in air at 700 °C resulted in ZnO nano crystalites with the average size of 42 nm. The antibacterial activity of ligand and its zinc(II) complex were tested against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The ligand showed higher activity than its zinc(II) complex. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.