Theoretical study on the interaction of sulfur‐ and aminopyridine‐containing chelating resins with Hg(II) and Pb(II)

The geometries and energetics of complexes of Hg(II) and Pb(II) with sulfur‐ and aminopyridine‐containing chelating resin including crosslinked polystyrene immobilizing 2‐aminopyridine via sulfur‐containing (PVBS‐AP), sulfoxide‐containing (PVBSO‐AP), and sulfone‐containing (PVBSO₂‐AP) spacer arms have been investigated theoretically, and thus interactions of the metal ions with chelating resins were evaluated. The results indicate that PVBS‐AP behaves as a tridentate ligand to coordinate with the metal ions by S and two N atoms to form chelating compounds with S atom playing a dominant role in the coordination, whereas PVBSO‐AP and PVBSO₂‐AP interact with metal cations, respectively, in a tricoordinate manner by O and two N atoms forming chelating complexes. Furthermore, it is revealed that O and N2 atoms of PVBSO‐AP are the main contributor of coordination to Hg(II), whereas N2 atom of PVBSO₂‐AP is mainly responsible for the coordination to Hg(II). For PVBSO‐AP‐Pb²⁺ and PVBSO₂‐AP‐Pb²⁺ complex, the coordination is dominated by the synergetic effect of N1, N2, and O atoms. Natural bond orbital and second‐order perturbation analyses suggest that the charge transfer from the chelating resins to metal ions is mainly dominated by the interactions of lone pair of electrons of the donor atoms with the unoccupied orbitals of metal ions. Hg(II) complexes exhibit larger binding energies than the corresponding Pb(II) complexes, implying the chelating resins exhibit higher affinity toward Hg(II), which is consistent with the experimental results. Combined the theoretical and experimental results, further understanding of the structural information of the complexes and the coordination mechanism was achieved. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2011