A new, efficient and environmental friendly procedure for the synthesis of a series of salicylaldehyde-based Schiff bases and their metal complexes in aqueous media were conducted. The work involved the condensation of salicylaldehyde with various amines, both aromatic and aliphatic and the Schiff bases formed were complexed with a transition metal Ni and an alkaline earth metal Mg. This green synthetic approach was compared with conventional procedure and found to have advantages like good yield and reduction in reaction time and byproducts. The synthesized Schiff bases and their complexes were characterized by FTIR. The antibacterial activity of complexed and uncomplexed Schiff bases were compared against Escherichia coli and the Mg complex is found to have better antibacterial activity than the corresponding Ni complex.
