TRANSITION-METAL SACCHARIDE CHEMISTRY - SYNTHESIS, SPECTROSCOPY, ELECTROCHEMISTRY AND MAGNETIC-SUSCEPTIBILITY STUDIES OF IRON(III) COMPLEXES OF MONOSACCHARIDES AND DISACCHARIDES

Low molecular weight, soluble and characterizable saccharide complexes of iron(III) were synthesised from MeOH using stoichiometric quantiti es of saccharides and sodium metal. Monosaccharides such as D-glucose, L-sorbose, D-fructose, D-mannose and D-galactose, and disaccharides s uch as lactose, maltose and sucrose were used for complexation. The fi nal iron(III)-saccharide complexes were isolated, purified and charact erised by various analytical, spectroscopic methods including Mossbaue r, magnetic susceptibility and electrochemical methods. While half of these complexes were found to be mononuclear, the rest exhibited chara cteristics close to hydroxo-bridged dinuclear species. The inherent st ability and hydrolytically robust nature of these complexes over a wid e range of pH was demonstrated. The reductive release of iron from the se complexes was shown to be better than that of the iron-dextran comp lex reported in the literature. Based on their demonstrated properties these may be considered as potentially important in the oral nutritio nal supplementation of iron.