Synthesis of Schiff bases of 4-(4-aminophenyl)-morpholine as potential antimicrobial agents

In the present study, a novel series of Schiff bases of 4-(4-aminophenyl)-morpholine were synthesised and characterised by IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, Mass spectral and elemental analysis. The compounds were screened for antibacterial (Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 9144), Staphylococcus epidermidis (ATCC 155), Bacillus cereus (ATCC 11778), Micrococcus luteus (ATCC 4678), and Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922)) and antifungal (Candida albicans (ATCC 2091) and Aspergillus niger (ATCC 9029)) activities. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of the compounds were also ascertained by agar streak dilution method. 4-(4-(4-Hydroxy-benzylidene-imino)phenyl)-morpholine (7) was found to be the most potent antimicrobial activity with MIC of 25, 19, 21, 16, 29, 20 and 40 μg/ml against S. aureus, S. epidermidis, B. cereus, M. luteus, E. coli, C. albicans and A. niger, respectively. All the other compounds exhibited moderate activity against the bacterial and fungal organisms tested.