Monomeric and polymeric copper and zinc tripyrrins

Neutral transition metal complexes of different alpha, omega-dimethyltripyrrins TrpyMX with M = Cu(II) and Zn(II) have been prepared with a variety of anionic halogeno and pseudohalogeno ligands X, and have been studied with respect to coordination modes and structural distortion. Only four- and five-coordinate species have been observed throughout the series. All four- coordinate species display unstrained, but distorted tetrahedral or strained and distorted square-planar coordination environments for zinc(II) and copper(II) species, respectively, thus following the expectations from simple ligand field arguments. Five-coordinate species do not form easily and were observed either in donor solvents or in the solid as 1D coordination polymers with distorted trigonal-bipyramidal coordination and different topologies.