The importance of Creatinine in clinical chemistry is well recognized: its
level in serum and urine is indicative of renal function (Creatinine Cleara
nce Test) and it is the final metabolic product of Creatine, that participa
tes in energy flow in the muscle tissues. It has been suggested that the me
tabolism of Creatinine is connected with the complexation to metal ions. Ho
wever, no thermoanalytical studies on Creatinine complexes are reported in
the literature. In this work, the synthesis and the thermal behavior of new
Cu-(II)-Creatinine complexes are described. By the coupled TG-FT-IR techni
que, the proposed decomposition mechanism of the complexes is confirmed. A
parallel characterization by solid state IR spectroscopy and mass spectrome
try is also reported. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.