Assembly of heteroleptic copper complexes with silver salts: from discrete trinuclear complexes to infinite networks

The use of heteroleptic copper complexes functionalized with two differentiated coordinating groups for the elaboration of heterometallic extended networks is presented. Two novel 5-phenyl-dipyrrin (dpm) ligands appended with an imidazole or a pyrazole function, dpm-imid and dpm-pz, have been prepared and used as ligands for the synthesis of a series of heteroleptic (acacR)Cu(dpm) complexes (acacH = acetylacetonate; acacCN = 3-cyanoacetylacetonate). The X-ray crystal structures of these complexes revealed that, albeit no particular association mode is observed for the acac capping ligand, one-dimensional networks are formed with the acacCN capping ligand. Whereas the imidazole peripheral ligand is coordinated to the copper center of a neighboring complex in the structure of (acacCN)Cu(dpm-imid), such an interaction is absent for the pyrazole appended derivative, (acacCN)Cu(dpm-pz), leading to an association mode involving the peripheral nitrile group of the acacCN ligand. Upon reaction of the imidazole functionalized complexes, (acac)Cu(dpm-imid) and (acacCN)Cu(dpm-imid), with silver salts, trinuclear species, {[(acacR)Cu(dpm-imid)](2)Ag}(+), are formed as a result of the coordination of the azole nitrogen atom of two copper complexes to the silver ion. As expected, in the case of (acac)Cu(dpm-imid), these species do not self-assemble into an extended network owing to the absence of a peripheral coordinating group. However, for the (acacCN)Cu(dpm-imid) complex, the trinuclear species are equipped with peripheral nitrile groups, thus allowing the binding of metal centers. Consequently, these species self-assemble into one-dimensional polymers with association modes varying with the nature of the anion present in the silver salt.