Octahedral distortion caused by hydrogen bonding in tris(diethylammonium) hexachloridoantimonate(III)

The factors influencing the distortion of inorganic anions in the structures of chloridoantimonates(III) with organic cations, in spite of numerous structural studies on those compounds, have not been clearly described and separated. The title compound, [(C(2)H(5))(2)NH(2)](3)[SbCl(6)], consisting of isolated distorted [SbCl(6)](3-) octahedra that have C(3) symmetry and [(C(2)H(5))(2)NH(2)](+) cations, unequivocally shows the role played by hydrogen bonding in the geometry variations of inorganic anions. The organic cations, which are linked to the inorganic substructure through N-H...Cl hydrogen bonds, are clearly responsible for the distortion of the octahedral coordination of Sb(III) in terms of differences (Delta) in both Sb-Cl bond lengths [Delta = 0.4667 (6) A] and Cl-Sb-Cl angles [Delta = 9.651 (17) degrees].