In this paper, we report on the preparation of Imidazole-functionalized glass surfaces, demonstrating the ability of a dinuclear Cu(II) complex of a macrocyclic ligand to give a "cascade" interaction with the deprotonated forms of grafted imidazole moieties. In this way, we realized a prototypal example of an antimicrobial surface based on a supramolecular approach, obtaining a neat microbicidal effect using low amounts of the described copper complex.
Keywords: antibacterial surfaces; cascade complexes; copper complexes; microbicidal effect; self-assembled monolayers; supramolecular complex; surface functionalization.