Volume 203, 2017

Competition and selectivity in supramolecular synthesis: structural landscape around 1-(pyridylmethyl)-2,2′-biimidazoles

Abstract

Three isomeric forms of 1-(pyridylmethyl)-2,2′-biimidazole, A1–A3, have been synthesized and subjected to systematic co-crystallizations with selected hydrogen- and halogen-bond donors in order to explore the impact of electrostatics and geometry on the resulting supramolecular architectures. The solid-state supramolecular behavior of A1–A3 is largely consistent in halogen-bonded co-crystals. Only two types of primary interactions, the N–H⋯N/N⋯H–N homomeric hydrogen-bond interactions responsible for the pairing of biimidazole moieties and the I⋯N(pyridine) halogen bonds responsible for the co-crystal formation and structure extension, are present in these systems. The co-crystallizations with hydrogen-bond donors (carboxylic acids), however, lead to multiple possible structural outcomes because of the presence of the biimidazole–acid N–H⋯O[double bond, length as m-dash]C/N⋯H–O heterosynthon that can compete with biimidazole–biimidazole N–H⋯N/N⋯H–N homosynthon. In addition, the somewhat unpredictable nature of proton transfer makes the hydrogen-bonded co-crystals structurally less consistent than their halogen-bonded counterparts.

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 feb 2017
Accepted
04 apr 2017
First published
20 jul 2017

Faraday Discuss., 2017,203, 371-388

Competition and selectivity in supramolecular synthesis: structural landscape around 1-(pyridylmethyl)-2,2′-biimidazoles

C. A. Gunawardana, J. Desper, A. S. Sinha, M. Ðaković and C. B. Aakeröy, Faraday Discuss., 2017, 203, 371 DOI: 10.1039/C7FD00080D

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