Chiral supramolecular metal-organic architectures from dinuclear copper complexes

Two new chiral dinuclear Cu(II) complexes [Cu-2(mu-Cl)(2)(HL1)(2)] center dot C2H5OH (1) and [Cu-2(mu-Cl)(2)(HL2)(2)] center dot CH3OH (2), have been synthesized and structurally characterized, where the chiral ligands H2L1 and H2L2 are derived from the chiral amino alcohols (S)-(-)-2-amino-3-phenyl-1-propanol and (S)-(+)-2-phenylglycinol. Single-crystal X-ray crystallographic analyses revealed that in these complexes, the dominant hydrogen bonding property of metal bound chloride anion directs the self assembly of complex molecules through C-H... Cl hydrogen bonding interactions leading to the formation of intriguing hydrogen bonded metallo-supra molecular architectures in their respective crystal lattices. The supramolecular systems described here belong to the rare class of metal-organic architectures that are formed as a result of metal directed hydrogen bonding interactions among chiral complex molecules. Complexes 1 and 2 are further characterized by IR, ESR, UV-Vis and CD spectroscopy. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.