A bis-chelate o-vanillin-2-ethano-lamine copper(II) complex bearing both imine and amine forms of the ligand

The mol-ecular bis-chelate complex (2-{[(2-hy-droxy-ethyl-κO)amino-κN]meth-yl}-6-meth-oxy-phenolato-κO)(2-{[(2-hy-droxy-eth-yl)imino-κN]meth-yl}-6-meth-oxy-phenolato-κO)copper(II), [Cu(C₁₀H₁₄NO₃)(C₁₀H₁₂NO₃)] or [Cu(HL ^im)(HL ^am); HL ^im = C₁₀H₁₄NO₃; HL ^am = C₁₀H₁₂NO₃, represents the first compound containing a salicyl-idene-2-ethano-lamine type ligand in both imino HL ^im (Schiff base) and amino HL ^am (reduced Schiff base) forms that has been structurally characterized on the basis of X-ray data. Two mol-ecules of the monodeprotonated ligands coordinate the Cu^II ion in an (N,O _phen)-bidentate and an (N,O _phen,O _alc)-tridentate fashion in the case of the imino and amino forms, respectively. The shape of the CuN₂O₃ coordination polyhedron is a distorted square-pyramid (geometry index τ₅ = 0.26). Inter-molecular N-H⋯O and O-H⋯O hydrogen bonds, involving H atoms of the amino and hy-droxy-ethyl groups, create a two-dimensional supra-molecular array extending parallel to (010).