The effect of ligand donor atoms on ternary complex stability

Formation constants of mixed ligand complexes of Cu²⁺, Zn²⁺, Ni²⁺, Co²⁺, and Mn²⁺,with cyadine-5′-monophosphoric acid (CMP) and various primary ligands such as 1,10-phenanthroline(phen), glycylglycine(glygly) and salicylic acid (sal) have been determined in aqueous solution at 35°C and 0.1 M (KNO₃) by potentiomeric measurements. The acid dissociation constants of all the above mentioned ligands together with their 1 : 1 binary metal complex formation constants were also measured at 35°C. In general all the 1 : 1 binary complexes follow the Irving-Williams order of stability. Further the binary metal complexes of primary ligands are more stable than their ternary complexes with CMP. For ternary complexes, Δ(log K) values seem to change from positive to highly negative as the coordinating atoms of the primary ligands were varied from N,N to N,O^? to O^?O^?. The higher stability of ternary complexes involving phen is due to its Π-bonding interaction with the above metal ions and the relative decrease in the stability of other ternary systems is due to the coulombic repulsion of donor oxygen atoms of primary and secondary ligands. Thus for ternary complexes the stabilities follow a decreasing order of M-phen-CMP > M-glygly-CMP > M-sal-CMP.