CHARACTERIZATION BY ELECTRON-PARAMAGNETIC-RESONANCE SPECTROSCOPY OF THE COORDINATION ENVIRONMENT OF COPPER IN SOME COPPER(II) COMPLEXES OF ASYMMETRIC TRIAZINES HAVING HIGH SUPEROXIDE-DISMUTASE ACTIVITY

The chemical environments of copper in complexes with a range of subst ituted asymmetric triazines (as-triazine), which had previously been d emonstrated to possess high superoxide dismutase activity, have been c haracterized by EPR spectroscopy in both solution and the solid state. The results show that these preparations do not correspond to single mononuclear complexes and that the activity appears to be associated m ainly with a complex that has a structure involving two six-membered c helate rings and with two nitrogen and two oxygen atoms in the copper equatorial plane.