Assembling Quasi‐enantiomeric Octahedral Complexes of Different Metals via Quasi‐racemate Crystallization

Aiming at a general methodology for binary co-assembly of complexes of different metals through quasiracemate crystallization, the hexadentate ligand 1 comprised of the chiral bipyrrolidine core and two bipyridine peripheral arms is introduced. Ligand 1 was found to bind in a fully diastereoselective and uniform mode around Zn(II), Fe(II) and Cd(II) giving coordinatively inert octahedral "chiral-at-metal" complexes with the Δ4Λ2/Λ4 Δ2 wrapping mode. Equimolar mixtures of quasienantiomeric pairs of these complexes exhibited a clear tendency to pack as quasiracemates as was revealed from the crystallographic structures of [(R,R)-1-Zn](PF6)2/[(S,S)-1-Fe](PF6)2 and [(R,R)-1-Zn](PF6)2/[(S,S)-1-Cd](PF6)2, in an isomorphous fashion to that of the racemic compound [rac-1-Zn](PF6)2 in space group C2/c.