The full speciation of vanadium(V) complexation systems with glycinehydroxamic acid and three alpha-aminohydroxamic acids (alpha-alanine-, alpha-threonine- and alpha-lysine-) has been achieved using potentiometric and spectroscopic techniques. Formation constants were calculated in a systematic study at different concentrations and ligand-to-metal molar ratios. In each case, in a neutral medium, two complexes were identified with 1:1 and 1:2 metal-to-ligand ratios, both of which can either be protonated or deprotonated depending on the acidity or basicity of the medium. Structures are proposed based on V-51 NMR results. The 1:1 complex, VO2L (VO2+ = dioxovanadium(V) ion and L- = alpha-aminohydroxaniate ligand), has a distorted trigonal bipyramidal structure in neutral medium and it exists as VO2HL+ in acidic and as VO2(OH)L- in basic medium. The 1:2 complex, VO2H2L2+, which is formed in neutral medium, has an octahedral structure and also exists as VO2H3L22+ and VO2HL2, in acidic and basic media, respectively. In all cases, only the hydroxamate group appears to be coordinated to the VO2+ group. (c) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.