Crystal and molecular structure of the tetranuclear copper complex di-µ-chloro-bis{chloro[NN′-ethylenebis(salicylideneiminato)copper( II )]copper( II )}

The reaction product formed between NN′-ethylenebis(salicylaldiminato)copper(II), Cu(salen), and copper(II) chloride has been subjected to a three-dimensional X-ray analysis. The monoclinic cell has a= 7·791 (6), b= 16·780(6), c= 10·536(5)Å, β= 100·80(9)°; space group, P21/n. The structure was solved from diffractometer data by the heavy-atom method and refined by block-diagonal least squares to R 0·069. The tetranuclear molecular structure has chlorine atoms bridging binuclear species Cu(salen)CuCl2. The copper atoms bonded by the organic ligands are four-co-ordinate with a planar donor stereochemistry; the remaining copper atoms are five-co-ordinate with donors in a distorted tetragonal pyramidal geometry.