Pentanuclear clusters resembling the cubane-dangler connectivity in the native oxygen-evolving center of photosystem II.

A series of pentametallic "cubane-plus-dangler" complexes have been target synthesized. Among them, the [Fe3Ni2] aggregate strongly resembled the native oxygen-evolving center by mimicking the "cubane-plus-dangler" skeleton, the aqua binding site, and the connectivity between the pendent ion and the parent cubane. Our synthetic strategy that uses tri-substituted methanol as the "cubane-generator" and carboxylate as the pendant ligand provides a feasible approach for accessing model compounds of biological catalyst systems.