X-ray powder diffraction study of organometallic polymers:: [Ru(L)(CO)2]n (L=2,2′-bipyridine or 1,10-phenanthroline)

A combination of rather unconventional XRPD methods has been used to assess the polymeric nature of the [Ru(L)(CO)(2)](n) (L = 2,2'-bipyridine, 4,4'-dimethyl-2,2'-bipyridine, and 1,10-phenanthroline) derivatives. The polymeric chains pack pseudohexagonally in the ab plane and grow along c with Ru-Ru distances close to 3.0 Angstrom. The very poor diffraction patterns of these electrogenerated polymers suggest that the flat Ru(L)(CO)(2) monomers are staggered by 45degrees or 135degrees rotations (as in [Ru(CO)(4)](n)) but stack in random sequence along the chains.