Self-assembly of a copper(II)-based metallosupramolecular hexagon

The self-assembly of a 1:1 mixture of copper(II) ions and a rigid heteroditopic ligand L containing phen and terpy binding units gives rise in the solid state to green crystals of a hexanuclear metallamacrocycle 1. X-ray crystallography reveals that 1 consists of molecular hexagons of the grid-type family in which each metal ion is bound to two different ligands through the phen and terpy units, plus a weakly coordinated PF6 (-) anion in a highly distorted octahedral geometry. ES-MS studies of acetonitrile solutions of L and copper(II) in a 1:1 ratio show mixtures of polynuclear complexes in which trinuclear L3Cu3 species are predominant.