organic compounds
Acta Crystallographica Section C
Crystal Structure
Communications
is described by the torsion angles C3ÐC2ÐN1ÐC1 =
72.6 (1)ꢀ, C2ÐN1ÐC1ÐC1i = 175.5 (1)ꢀ and N1ÐC1Ð
C1iÐN1i constrained by symmetry to be 180ꢀ [symmetry code:
ISSN 0108-2701
A two-dimensional layer in N,N0-bis-
[2-(hydroxymethyl)benzyl]ethylene-
diamine and a three-dimensional
network in N,N0-bis[2-(hydroxy-
methyl)benzyl]ethylenediammonium
bis(perchlorate)
Min Zhang, Xiang-Gao Meng, Zong-Qiu Hu and Xing-Man
Xu*
Chemistry Department, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, People's
Republic of China
(i) x, 1 y, z], resulting in the less common gauche±trans±
trans conformation (Xia et al., 2006). The corresponding
angles in (II) are 178.9 (3), 168.1 (3) and 180ꢀ, respectively,
Correspondence e-mail: xingmanxu@mail.ccnu.edu.cn
Received 7 March 2008
Accepted 2 April 2008
Online 9 April 2008
forming the general trans±trans±trans conformation (Palladino
Ï
Â
Â
et al., 2006; Matikova-Malarova et al., 2007; Yang, Wang et al.,
2007; Yang, Han et al., 2007; Liu et al., 2007). Both N atoms in
the tetradentate ligand can be potentially coordinated to a
metal ion, according to previously reported analogues (Panda
et al., 2004; Ghosh et al., 1994), giving rise to many other
conformations. This indicates that these highly ¯exible mol-
ecules can rotate freely about all the ꢁ bonds. However, when
(II) is coordinated to a metal ion, it should ®rst be
deprotonated using a moderately basic medium.
In both title compounds, C18H24N2O2, (Ia), and C18H26-
2+
N2O2 Á2ClO4 , (II), respectively, the two aryl rings are
strictly parallel, with an inversion centre lying at the mid-point
of each central CH2ÐCH2 bond. Molecules in (Ia) are linked
into two-dimensional layers by NÐHÁ Á ÁO hydrogen bonds.
The component ions in (II) are joined together by a
combination of N/O/CÐHÁ Á ÁO hydrogen bonds and CÐ
HÁ Á Áꢀ and anionÁ Á Áꢀ interactions, forming a three-dimen-
sional network. A structural understanding of (Ia) and (II)
may provide some useful information about how and why
their metal±organic complexes display various biological
activities and function in catalytic processes.
Although a similar C(7) motif (Bernstein et al., 1995) exists
in both compounds, in (Ia) it is formed by intramolecular O1Ð
H1EÁ Á ÁN1 hydrogen bonds and in (II) by N1ÐH1CÁ Á ÁO1
hydrogen bonds. In order to investigate further the reason for
this, the hydrogen-bonding energy and total molecular energy
of the two practical and one posulated conformation were
calculated according to our earlier method (Hu et al., 1999;
Hu, 1998) using the program GAUSSIAN03W (Frisch et al.,
2004) at the RB3LYP/6-31G(d) level. It can be seen from
Comment
In recent decades, tetradentate Schiff bases known generally
as salenH2 (Kahwa et al., 1986) have been studied extensively
owing to their potential biological activities, e.g. antibacterial,
antitumour (Santos et al., 2001; Viswanathan et al., 1998;
Â
Garcõa-Zarracino et al., 2002) and catalytic (Mohebbi et al.,
2005). They not only offer greater ¯exibility than the corre-
sponding Schiff bases, but also adopt two additional sites
capable of ꢁ-bonding which should be helpful in designing
new useful inorganic complexes (Atwood & Rutherford, 1995;
Xu et al., 2004; Tinoco et al., 2007). In order to gain more
insight into these analogues, we have synthesized a new
tetradentate ligand, (Ia), containing an N2O2 donor set, and its
diammonium bis(perchlorate), (II), and we report here the
molecular and supramolecular structures.
Figure 1
The molecular structure of (Ia), showing the atom-numbering scheme.
Displacement ellipsoids are drawn at the 50% probability level. Some
hydrogen bonds are shown as dashed lines. [Symmetry codes: (i) x, 1 y,
z.]
Both title compounds crystallize in the space group P21/c,
with one-half of the molecule representing the asymmetric
unit (Fig. 1). The conformation of the central chain in (Ia)
o272 # 2008 International Union of Crystallography
DOI: 10.1107/S0108270108008937
Acta Cryst. (2008). C64, o272±o275