Superoxide dismutase mimicking Cu(II)-mixed amino acid complexes covalently grafted onto silica gel--an FT-IR study.

Our recent work concerning the synthesis, characterisation and testing of bioinspired electron transfer catalysts is described in this contribution. The catalysts were various Cu(II) complexes having mixed C- or N-protected amino acids (L-histidine and L-tyrosine) as ligands covalently grafted onto surface-modified silica gel. The resulting materials were structurally characterised by FT-IR spectroscopy, and their superoxide dismutase activities were tested. The covalently anchored Cu(II) complexes displayed appreciable activities in the test reaction; thus, they may be considered as promising candidates as durable electron transfer catalysts approaching the efficiency of the enzyme mimicked.