Mononuclear, oligonuclear and polynuclear metal coordination compounds with 1,2,4-triazole derivatives as ligands

1,2,4-Triazole and its derivatives have gained great attention as ligands to transition metals by the fact that they unite the coordination geometry of both pyrazoles and imidazoles, and in addition exhibit a strong and typical property of acting as bridging ligands between two metal centres. In this bridging capacity, the 1,2,4-triazole ligands show a great coordination diversity, especially when the triazole nucleus is substituted with additional donor groups. This property together with their strong sigma donor properties and the relative ease of synthesis make them very appealing for the design of new polynuclear metal complexes with interesting properties. A number of X-ray structures have been evaluated in some detail in the present paper. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.