Syntheses and crystal structures of manganese, nickel and zinc chloride complexes with dimethoxyethane and di(2-methoxyethyl) ether

Abstract Reactions of manganese and zinc chloride with dimethoxyethane (DME) in the presence of (CH 3 ) 3 SiCl and water resulted in [MnCl 2 (DME)] n ( 1 ) with a polymeric chain structure and in the molecular [ZnCl 2 (DME)] 2 ( 2 ), respectively. The complexes 1 and 2 reacted with di(2-methoxyethyl) ether (abbreviated diglyme) in tetrahydrofuran (THF) solvent achieving binuclear [MnCl 2 (diglyme)] 2 ( 3 ) and mononuclear [ZnCl 2 (diglyme)] ( 4 ), respectively. The complex [NiCl 2 (diglyme)] 2 ( 5 ) was prepared by the reaction of nickel chloride hexahydrate, diglyme and (CH 3 ) 3 SiCl in THF solvent. A distorted octahedral geometry was found for manganese and nickel ions in the complexes 1 , 3 and 5 . Linear chains of manganese ions linked by double chloride bridges are present in 1 . Two bridging chlorides connect two manganese or nickel atoms into isostructural binuclear molecules 3 and 5 , respectively. Two zinc ions in the complex 2 are in different environments, in a tetrahedral and in an octahedral one, while five-coordinate zinc ions are present in the mononuclear complexes 4 .