Syntheses, X-ray crystal structures, and emission properties of protonated tripyridyltriazines and their ruthenium(II) complexes

A series of metal-free compounds, ie, planar triprotonated triazine, triazineH3Cl(PF6)2 (1), planar triprotonated triazineH3Br(PF6)2 (2), and nonplanar monoprotonated triazineHPF6 (3), were prepared. Abbreviations used are triazine = tri-2-pyridyltriazine. Ruthenium complexes [RuCl(bpy)(L)](PF6), [RuCl(bpy)(L)](PF6)2, and [Ru(L)2](PF6)2 were also prepared, where bpy is 2,2′-bipyridine and L's are triazine (4) and monoprotonated triazine (5), respectively. Ruthenium complexes [Ru(triazine)2](PF6)2 (6) were also prepared and crystallized. The X-ray crystal structures of the 3 compounds 1, 2, and 3 and the complex 6 were determined. They were also characterized by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, UV-vis spectroscopy, and density functional theory calculations.