Oxovanadium and copper complexes of new unsymmetrically tetradentate ligands: X- ray structure, theoretical and NLO properties, catalytic oxidation and bromoperoxidase activities

•New unsymmetrical complexe structures were confirmed by spectral analyses.•Copper center in CuLT displays an ideal square planar geometry.•Scrutinized compounds are excellent second and third order NLO materials.•High catalytic performances toward cyclohexene epoxidation.•CuLR mimic the functional models of vanadium haloperoxidase enzymes. A series of mononuclear oxovanadium VOLBz, VOLT and copper CuLBz, CuLT complexes containing unsymmetrical tetradentate Schiff base ligands were synthesized and fully characterized by conventional spectroscopic techniques such as FT-IR, UV–vis, 1HNMR and mass spectrometry (MS). Crystal structure data of CuLT, solved by X-ray diffraction, shows a monoclinic system with Cc space group and Z = 4 molecules per unit cell. The central copper ion adopts a nearly ideal square planar coordination geometry. Cyclic voltammetry of oxovanadium and copper complexes revealed quasi reversible redox couples corresponding to VOIV/VOV and CuI/CuII redox processes, respectively. The quantum calculations, performed by DFT and TD-DFT theory at the M062X/6-311**G/SDD level, agree well with the experimental data. The results show that the copper and the oxovanadium compounds have larger static and dynamic hyperpolarizability values than the urea. For instance, the β0 value of H2LT is about 68 times larger than that of the urea. The results predict that the studied compounds have the ability to be excellent second and third-order NLO materials. The prepared complexes catalyzed effectively homogeneous oxidation reaction of cyclohexene in the presence of H2O2 as oxidant. Higher conversion of 98% is attained using CuLBz as catalyst. The bromoperoxidase activity is explored in the oxidative bromination of phenol red as a trap employing the studied complexes which can be considered as potential functional models of bromoperoxidase, CuLBz catalyst exhibits the better catalytic activity, the reaction rate constant k is equal to 2.203×105 (mol L-1)-2s-1. [Display omitted] Oxovanadium and copper complexes are efficient catalysts toward cyclohexene oxidation and phenol red oxidative bromination