Date of Project
4-19-2024
Document Type
Honors Thesis
School Name
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Chemistry
Major Advisor
Anna Christianson
Second Advisor
Amanda Krzysiak
Abstract
Bismuth, a relatively inexpensive heavy metal with low toxicity, has the potential to be used in medicines and anticancer drugs. This project is exploring bismuth complexes with ligands based on chalcones, which are a type of small organic molecules with known anticancer properties. Preliminary results on a bismuth-chalcone complex indicate that substituted aryl bismuth complexes have better anticancer activity than triphenylbismuth or the chalcone ligand on its own. A series of trisubstituted bismuth molecules were synthesized using a BiCl3 Grignard reaction under a nitrogen atmosphere with different substituents to provide electron donating groups, electron withdrawing groups or bulk. X-ray Crystallography was used to characterize the crystallized products and show the helical chirality with both Δ and Λ enantiomers appearing in a racemic mixture. Crystal structures also showed close to 90º C-Bi-C bond angles resulting in an exaggerated trigonal pyramidal geometry unique to heavy main group element bonding. The series of molecules is to be used in future research to determine if the substituent on the bismuth impacts the anticancer qualities of the bismuth-chalcone molecule.
Recommended Citation
Belk, Cassidy, "Synthesis of Trisubstituted Bismuth Complexes for Future Research" (2024). Undergraduate Theses. 153.
https://scholarworks.bellarmine.edu/ugrad_theses/153