Coordination chemistry of the thiosalicylate ligand

• The different, diverse binding modes of the thiosalicylate ligand are reviewed.
• Thiosalicylate acts as a versatile, hybrid hard-soft ligand.
• Coordination complexes with a large proportion of the metallic elements known.

Thiosalicylic acid (2-mercaptobenzoic acid, o-HSC6H4CO2H) is an interesting hybrid hard-soft donor ligand, able to coordinate a very wide range of metal centres from the entire periodic table, as either a mono- or di-anion, with a wide range of coordination modes, from simple monodentate through to various bridging modes. This review article summarises the coordination chemistry of the thiosalicylate ligand, with an emphasis on recent developments, especially where X-ray crystallography has been used to provide unequivocal evidence of the binding mode(s) of the thiosalicylate ligand. Applications of the thiosalicylate ligand in materials chemistry are also summarised.

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