Foreman Madison M, Alessio Maristella, Krylov Anna I, Weber J Mathias
JILA and Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado at Boulder, UCB 440, Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.
Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-0482, United States.
J Phys Chem A. 2023 Mar 16;127(10):2258-2264. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.2c07996. Epub 2023 Mar 6.
The vibrational spectra of cold complexes of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) with transition metal dications in vacuo show how the electronic structure of the metal provides a geometric template for interaction with the functional groups of the binding pocket. The OCO stretching modes of the carboxylate groups of EDTA serve as structural probes, informing on the spin state of the ion as well as the coordination number in the complex. The results highlight the flexibility of EDTA in accepting a large range of metal cations in its binding site.