Sustainable synthetic endeavors of pharmaceutically active Schiff bases and their metal complexes: A review on recent reports

Schiff base complexes with various metals proved out to be excellent bioactive agents in pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry along with catalytic role in organic reactions also. Earlier reported conventional methods include refluxing at higher temperature, use of harmful solvents and more time consuming reaction procedures. Recently, several research papers have been published with novel green methodologies utilizing photo or nano catalyst, use of greener solvents like aqueous media or solvent free conditions with sustainable synthetic techniques such as microwave and ultrasound-irradiation. So keeping in mind the fast demand of Schiff base enriched motifs in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry as bioactive compound herein this review, we summarize the advancement in the synthetic methods firstly focusing on green methodologies along with recently developed Schiff bases motifs with conventional strategies also. In addition, the catalytical role and the anti-bacterial, antimicrobial, anti-cancer and anti-oxidant studies of Schiff base metal complexes appended with Cu, Co, Ni, Fe, Mn, Pd, Sn, Cd, Zn, Ru, Pt and Zr have also been discussed in the present review article.