Hydrophobicity and Reactivity of Base Hydrolysis of Some Novel Low Spin Fe(II) Amino Acid Schiff Base Complexes in Some Binary Aqueous Solvent Mixtures

Rate constants for base hydrolysis of bis(naphthylidene isoleucinate)iron (II) (nili), bis(naphthylidene leucinate)iron(II) (nli), bis(naphthylidene serinate)iron(II) (nsi), bis(salicylidene isoleucinate)iron(II) (sili), (salicylidene leucinate)iron(II) (sli), bis(salic- ylidene methioninate)iron(II) (smi), and (salicylidene tryptophanate)iron(II) (sti) have been reported in different binary aqueous mixtures at 298 K. The observed reactivity trends are discussed in terms of the hydrophilic and hydrophobic forms of the complexes investigated, as well as the transfer chemical potentials of hydroxide ion and the complex. Both the solvent–solute and solvent–solvent interactions have been considered. The hydrophobic character of the complexes studied was manifested by enhancing the rate of base hydrolysis at the initial addition of the different cosolvents; further addition led mostly to a decrease in reactivity, but, in some cases, the greater destabilization of OH^– ion by added DMSO and acetone increases the rate of base hydrolysis. The modified Savage–Wood equation, based on the principle of group additivity, was applied to estimate the observed kinetic medium effects.