A bioinspired approach to control over size, shape and function of polynuclear iron compounds

Transition metal centres, clusters and aggregates are common in biological systems and fulfil a variety of functions. Nature has the ability to tailor the properties of such species by controlling the molecular and supramolec ular environment of the metal centres through the influence of additional s tructure-directing chemical species. We have been inspired by this to devel op synthetic methods which explore the effects of such templating species o n the structure and properties of coordination compound aggregates. We have found that chelating ligands can be used to manipulate the hydrolysis of t ransition metal ions and direct structure and properties both at the molecu lar and supramolecular levels. Results for a series of iron(III) compounds formed with ligands based around the iminodiacetate moiety are presented. ( C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.