A highly rigid ditopic conjugate with orthogonal coordination axes and its zinc(ii) and copper(ii) complexes

Abstract

A highly rigid ditopic ligand has been prepared which consists of a terpy fragment connected in the back to a phen nucleus via a 1,4-phenylene linker. The chemical structure of the presently reported ligand is such that the coordination axes of the two chelates are orthogonal to one another. The reaction of this phen–terpy conjugate with zinc(II) surprisingly affords in good yield a dinuclear complex in spite of the tension of the generated structure, whereas coordination of copper(II) centres to the two-chelate ligand enables the formation of the trinuclear complex also.