New J. Chem., 37, 1391-1401 (2013)

DOI: 10.1039/c3nj40921j

A silver complex of chloroquine: synthesis, characterization and structural properties

A new silver–chloroquine (CQ–Ag) complex [CQAgNO3, CQ = chloroquine, C18H26N3Cl] has been synthesized and characterized by using a combination of NMR (solution and solid-state), FTIR, molar conductivity and ESI/FT-ICR high resolution mass spectroscopy with DFT calculations. The CQ–Ag complex is formed by silver–CQ cations and nitrate counter anions, where the silver atoms are di-coordinated to chloroquines (CQ2Ag2+) through the quinoline sp2 N and diethylamino sp3 N nitrogen basic sites. These cations presumably form polymeric structures mainly as head–head catemers. The most important cationic fragments of the CQ–Ag complex, detected by ESI/FT-ICR, were CQAg+, CQ2Ag+, chloroquine singly (CQH+) and doubly protonated (CQH22+), whose formations are clearly favored by proton-displacement of the Ag+ cations.