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Updated: Jan 31, 2026

Preparation, Purification, and Characterization of Lanthanide Complexes for Use as Contrast Agents for Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Published on: July 21, 2011
Synthesis, structure and long-lived NIR luminescence of lanthanide ate complexes with perfluorinated
Vasily A Ilichev1, Liubov I Silantyeva, Artem N Yablonskiy
1G. A. Razuvaev Institute of Organometallic Chemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences, Tropinina 49, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation. ilichev@iomc.ras.ru.
Abstract:
To obtain new efficient lanthanide-based NIR luminophores perfluorinated 2-mercaptobenzothiazole was used as a ligand. The ate-complexes [(Ln(mbtF)4)-(Na(DME)3)+] of Nd (1), Sm (2), Tb (3), Er (4), Yb (5) and [(Y(mbtF)4)-(Li(DME)3)+] (6) were synthesized in high yields by the reactions of the respective silylamide compounds Ln[N(SiMe3)2]3 and M[N(SiMe3)2] (M = Li, Na) with 4,5,6,7-tetrafluoro-1,3-benzothiazol-2(3H)-thione (HmbtF) in DME media. The complexes 1-3 and 6 were structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis. It has been shown that the mbtF ligands sensitize the luminescence of Nd, Sm, Tb, Er and Yb ions upon mild UV or blue light excitation. The NIR luminescence of crystalline compounds 1, 2, 4 and 6 has been studied by time-resolved techniques. As expected, the compounds exhibit prolonged NIR luminescence due to the removal of C-H groups from lanthanide centers and the absence of C-O bonds in the coordination sphere of the lanthanides. The synthesized compounds are promising materials for NIR laser applications.
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