2.1. Synthesis and Characterizations
The self-assembly of the organic ligand (DMPT) [
45] and Ni(NO
3)
2.6H
2O in ethanol lead to the formation of two new crystalline Ni(II) complexes in the same pot (
Scheme 1). The two complexes
1 and
2 were distinguished very clearly as green and turquoise crystals, respectively. Additionally, both complexes are separated easily from the reaction pot as the green crystals of
1 were formed on the glass beaker’s walls, while turquoise crystals of
2 were collected from the bottom of the beaker. FTIR data of the ligand DMPT and its two complexes were compared in
Figure S1 (Supplementary Data). The FTIR spectra of DMPT showed the ν(C=N) modes at 1523 and 1492 cm
−1. These bands are shifted to higher wavenumbers of 1593 and 1572 cm
−1 in the case of
1, while appeared as a split band at 1575 and 1607 cm
−1 in the case of
2, indicating the coordination of the Ni(II) ion in the two complexes via the nitrogen atoms of azomethine, triazine and pyridine moieties of DMPT. The broad band at 3382 cm
−1 in complex
1 and 3327 cm
−1 in complex
2 confirms the presence of water molecules in the two complexes. Additionally, the (N–O) stretches of the nitrate group in the two complexes appeared at the same frequency at 1385 cm
−1.
2.2. X-ray Structure Description
The molecular structure of complex
1 was confirmed by crystal X-ray diffraction to be [Ni(DMPT)(H
2O)
3](NO
3)
2.3H
2O. The crystal system of
1 is monoclinic and the space group is
P21/n. The unit cell parameters are
a = 11.4900(2) Å,
b = 17.6794(3) Å,
c = 14.1294(2) Å and
β = 90.110(1)°. In the unit cell, there are four molecules of the abovementioned formula and its volume is 2870.19(8) Å
3, while the calculated density is 1.563 mg/m
3. The asymmetric formula is one [Ni(DMPT)(H
2O)
3](NO
3)
2.3H
2O molecule (
Figure 2).
The inner sphere of this complex comprised a hexa-coordinated Ni(II) ion with one DMPT and three water molecules, while the outer sphere composed of two nitrate counter ions and three crystal water molecules. It is clear from
Figure 2 that the DMPT ligand acts as a neutral tridentate
NNN-chelate via three Ni–N coordination interactions which are the Ni(1)–N(2), Ni(1)–N(1) and Ni(1)–N(4) bonds. Their respective Ni–N distances are 2.0031(12), 2.1002(13) and 2.2608(12) Å, respectively. It is clear that the Ni–N
(hydrazone) is the shortest interaction. In contrast, the Ni–N
(s-triazine) is the longest Ni–N bond. The chelate angles N(2)–Ni(1)–N(1) and N(2)–Ni(1)–N(4) are determined to be 77.93(5) and 76.47(4)°, respectively, while the trans-N(1)–Ni(1)–N(4) is determined to be 154.38(5)°. On the other hand, the coordination sphere of the Ni(II) ion is completed by three water molecules. The equatorial Ni1–O2 bond, which is trans to the Ni–N
(hydrazone) bond, is the shortest interaction with the water molecules. The two axial Ni1–O3 and Ni1–O4 bonds are slightly longer than the equatorial Ni–O bond. The corresponding Ni–O distances are 2.0466(12) and 2.0764(12) Å, respectively (
Table 1). The distorted octahedron comprised the four atoms N1, N2, N4 and O2 as corners for the distorted square as a basal plane, while the two oxygens O1 and O3 are apical.
As clearly seen from
Figure 2, the solid state structure of complex
1 comprised a large number of coordinated and hydration water molecules which participate significantly with the nitrate counter anions in the molecular packing of this monomeric complex. The important hydrogen bond contacts are shown in
Figure 3A and the corresponding geometric parameters are depicted in
Table 2. The nitrate counter ions as hydrogen bond acceptor connect the monomeric complex units via short hydrogen bonding interactions with the free and coordinated water molecules. In this supramolecular structure, the free water molecules act as both hydrogen bond donors as well as hydrogen bond acceptors while the coordinated H
2O molecules are only hydrogen bond donors. In addition, the oxygen atom of the morpholine substituents and one of the free triazine N-atoms (N5) participated in the molecular packing of complex
1 as hydrogen bond acceptors (
Figure 3B).
On the other hand, the structure of complex
2 was found very similar to that for
1 regarding the coordination sphere and counter anions but differ only in the number of the crystal water molecules. In case of complex
2, there is one water molecule instead of three H
2O molecules in complex
1. Additionally, this complex crystallized in the less symmetric triclinic crystal system and
P-1 space group. The unit cell parameters are
a = 8.3135(2) Å,
b = 10.9175(2) Å,
c = 15.7611(4) Å,
α = 71.119(1)°,
β = 80.188(1)° and
γ = 84.58(1)°. In the unit cell there are two molecules of the asymmetric formula [Ni(DMPT)(H
2O)
3](NO
3)
2.H
2O and its volume is 1332.20(5) Å
3 while the calculated density is 1.594 mg/m
3 (
Figure 4).
The structure of the coordination sphere of complex
2 comprised one tridentate DMPT molecule and three water molecules. Similar to complex
1, the Ni–N
(hydrazone) bond is the shortest Ni–N interaction with the organic ligand compared to the Ni–N
(s-triazine) and Ni–N
(pyridine) bonds. The respective Ni–N distances are 2.0079(18) Å, 2.1031(18) and 2.1907(18) Å. The N(2)–Ni(1)–N(1) and N(2)–Ni(1)–N(8) angles are 78.11(7) and 77.95(7)°, respectively, while the trans N(1)–Ni(1)–N(8) is 156.03(7)°. The hexa-coordination environment of the Ni(II) is completed by the three Ni(1)–O(2), Ni(1)–O(3) and Ni(1)–O(1) bonds. The respective Ni–O distances are 2.0378(17), 2.0409(17) and 2.0652(16) Å, respectively (
Table 3). Additionally, the equatorial Ni1–O2 bond is the shortest Ni–O bonds. The results of these geometric parameters are similar to those for complex
1 and the NiN
3O
3 coordination environment of the Ni(II) ion could be described as a distorted octahedron.
The supramolecular structure of complex
2 is controlled only by a significant number of O…H interactions (
Table 4), which are considered as another major difference between the two complexes. In this case, there is one crystal water molecule, and hence, the monomeric units are connected differently in the crystal structure compared to
1. While the hydrazone NH group participated in the hydrogen bond network of
1 by only the N(3)–H(3)…O(8) hydrogen bond, there are two significant N–H…O hydrogen bonds in complex
2, which are the N(3)–H(3)...O(6) and N(3)–H(3)...O(7). Additionally, the crystal water molecule is both a hydrogen bond donor and acceptor in this complex via O(3)–H(3A)...O(12), O(12)–H(12C)...O(11) and O(12)–H(12D)...O(9) hydrogen bonds (
Figure 5A). In addition, the two morpholine moieties and the nitrate counter anions participated in the hydrogen bonding interactions as hydrogen bond acceptors via their oxygen atoms. A view of the packing scheme is shown in
Figure 5B.
In the studied complexes, we noted the presence of another common intermolecular interaction between the nitrate anion and the π-system of the organic ligand (DMPT). It is clearly seen from
Figure 6 that the presence of short C6…O9 (3.108 Å) and C8…O6 (3.208 Å) contacts revealed this observation very well.
2.3. Hirshfeld Analysis
The results of the X-ray crystal structure analysis were accurately mirrored by the Hirshfeld surface analysis, which also provided a novel visual way to understand intermolecular interactions via the colors of various regions [
46,
47]. The Hirshfeld (HF) surfaces and the 2D fingerprint (FP) plots of complexes
1 and
2 were analyzed. As shown from X-ray studies, the asymmetric unit in complex
1 consists of one [Ni(DMPT)(H
2O)
3]
2+ cationic complex unit as the inner sphere and two nitrate anions in addition to three crystallized water molecules in the outer sphere. On the other hand, there is only one water molecule present in an asymmetric unit of complex
2. Hence, the Hirshfeld surfaces around each entity in both complexes have been computed (
Figure 7). Using fingerprint plot, it is possible to decompose all intermolecular interactions and the percentage of all these contacts could be easily obtained. Subsequently, their corresponding intermolecular interactions were quantified separately in
Figure 8.
According to the aforementioned data, both complexes (
1 and
2) are very close in their intermolecular interactions. It is clear that the interactions involving hydrogen atoms are the most dominant, mainly the hydrogenic H…H and the polar O…H interactions in all entities, except nitrate anions, in which the O…H interaction is the only most prevalent one (
Figure 8). This suggests that strong O…H interactions is the driving force in the formation of the crystal packing in both complexes, and this is attributed to the presence of the nitrate anions and water molecules.
For the [Ni(DMPT)(H
2O)
3]
2+ cation (E1 and E1` in complexes
1 and
2, respectively), the most significant contact is the O…H interaction, which contributed by 35.1 and 33.5% in E1 and E1`, respectively. Additionally, the H…H, N…H and C…H contacts contributed 42.3, 7.8 and 11.1% in E1, respectively. The corresponding values in E1` are 43.3, 8.5 and 11.9%, respectively. These short interactions appeared as sharp spikes in the FP plots (
Figure 9), indicating strong interactions between the [Ni(DMPT)(H
2O)
3]
2+ and the neighboring units (
Figure 10 and
Table 5). In the entity E1 of complex
1, the shortest O…H interactions are O13…H2B (1.710Å), O12…H2A (1.749 Å) and O14…H1A (1.656 Ǻ). On the other hand, the O12…H3A (1.713 Å) and O4…H1A (1.749 Å) in the E1` entity of complex
2 are the most significant O…H contact. A summary of the significant short interactions around the [Ni(DMPT)(H
2O)
3]
2+ in both complexes is shown in
Table 5.
For the outer-sphere nitrate anions (E2 and E3 in
1, while E2`and E3` in
2), the O...H contact is the most dominant, which contributed 92.5% (E2), 86.6% (E3), 92.3% (E2`) and 89.6% (E3`) of the total HF surface area (
Figure 11). The shortest contacts which appeared in the d
norm maps as red spots are O7…H14B (1.829Å) and O11…H3B (1.779 Å) in complex
1, while O10…H2B (1.794 Å) and O6…H3B (1.784 Å) in complex
2 (
Table 5).
For the water of crystallization (E4:E6 in
1 and E4` in
2), the O…H and H…H interactions represent almost all the 2D fingerprint area (
Figure S2, Supplementary Data). The decomposed d
norm maps exemplify relatively short O…H and H…H interactions that appear as dark red spots (
Figure 12). The shortest O…H contacts in
1 are O13…H2B (1.710 Å), O14…H1A (1.656 Å) and O12…H2A (1.749 Å), while O12…H3A (1.713 Å) in
2. For the H…H interaction, the shortest contacts are H13D…H2B (2.152Å), H14A…H1A (2.118 Å) and H12D…H3A (2.151Å), as shown in
Table 5.
2.4. Antimicrobial Assay
The antimicrobial activity of the free ligand and complex
1 were determined against selected Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacterial strains and two fungal species. The results of the inhibition zone diameters were collected in
Table 6. The results indicated that both the ligand and its Ni(II) complex are inactive toward both fungal species:
A. fumigatus and
C. albicans. On the other hand, the Ni(II) complex was found active against the Gram-positive bacterial species
B. subtilis, but not active against
S.aureus. The inhibition zone diameter of the Ni(II) complex is 12 mm and the minimum inhibitory concentration is 1250 μg/mL. Additionally, the Ni(II) complex is active against the Gram-negative bacterial species
E. coli, but is found inactive against
P. vulgaris. The inhibition zone diameter of the Ni(II) complex is 11 mm and the minimum inhibitory concentration is 1250 μg/mL. Interestingly, the free ligand was found inactive against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria species. The higher antibacterial activity of the Ni(II) complex against
B. subtilis and
E. coli compared to the free Schiff base ligand (DMPT) might be attributed to the ability of the metal chelates to inhibit the respiration mechanism of the microbial organisms, which make them unable to manufacture their own proteins, preventing the organism from growing further [
48]. On the other hand, the studied Ni(II) complex has a lower antimicrobial activity than the
gentamycin as a positive control. It is worth to note that the Cu(II) and Mn(II) complexes of DMPT ligand [
45] are better antimicrobial agents and have broader antibacterial spectra than the corresponding Ni(II) complex.