Molecular assembly of 1,3,5-tris(cyanomethyl) and 1,4-bis(cyanomethyl)arenes with silver triflate*
Kathleen V. Kilway1, Shiping Deng1, Sean Bowser1, Joseph Mudd1, Laronda Washington1, and Douglas M. Ho2
1Department of Chemistry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City,MO 64110-2466, USA; 2Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton,NJ 08544-1009, USA
Abstract: Dicyano- and tricyano-substituted aromatic angular building blocks were systematically complexed with silver triflate, and their structures were determined by means of single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The molecular assembly of 1,3,5-tris(cyanomethyl)-2,4,6-triethylbenzene with silver triflate from benzene resulted in a layered structure with distorted square pyramidal silver sites. The structure resulting from the complexation of 1,3,5-tris(cyanomethyl)-2,4,6-trimethylbenzene with silver triflate is dependent on the solvent of crystallization. From benzene or toluene, reaction of 1,3,5-tris(cyanomethyl)-2,4,6-trimethylbenzene with silver triflate yielded a porous, channel-containing, solvated structure, but from acetone the resulting material was a network solid containing no solvent. Complexation of 1,4-bis(cyanomethyl)-2,3,5,6-tetraethylbenzene and 1,4-bis(cyanomethyl)-2,3,5,6-tetramethylbenzene with silver triflate resulted in network solids where the triflate anions were strongly coordinated to the silver.
Keywords: organonitriles; molecular assembly; silver salts; network solids; X-ray diffraction.
*Paper based on a presentation at the 11th International Symposium on Novel Aromatic Compounds (ISNA-11), St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, 14-18 August 2005. Other presentations are published in this issue, pp. 685-888..