Structural study of the coordination behavior of a tetradentate NO3-donor amino alcohol ligand toward a CdII:HgII mixture

Abstract

Abstract In this work, the reaction of 2,2′,2″-nitrilotriethanol (NTE) with a 1:1 mixture of CdI2 and HgI2 is investigated. The complex [Cd(NTE)2][Hg2(μ-I)2I4] was synthesized and identified by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H NMR spectroscopy and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The structure of the [HNTE]Cl salt is also presented. In the crystal structure of the complex, the cadmium atom has a CdN2O6 environment in a slightly distorted cube geometry. This geometry is one of the rare cube geometries with a minimum distortion among the Cambridge Structural Database structures for cadmium complexes. The anionic moiety has a binuclear structure with the mercury atoms being in tetrahedral environments. In the network of the complex, in addition to O−H · · · I hydrogen bonds, there are I · · · I interactions which lead to ten-membered rings.