Hydrogen bonding and fluorous weak interactions in the non‐isomorphous {4,4′‐bis[(2,2,3,3‐tetrafluoropropoxy)methyl]‐2,2′‐bipyridine‐κ2N,N′}dibromidopalladium and ‐platinum complexes

The polyfluorinated title compounds, MBr₂(C₁₈H₁₆F₈N₂O₂)] or 4,4′‐(HCF₂CF₂CH₂OCH₂)₂‐2,2′‐bpy]MBr₂, ( 1 ) (M = Pd and bpy is bipyridine) and ( 2 ) (M = Pt), have –CH_(α)2OCH_(β)2CF₂CF₂H side chains with methylene H‐atom donors at the α and β sites, and methine H‐atom donors at the terminal sites, in addition to aromatic H‐atom donors. In contrast to the original expectation of isomorphous structures, ( 1 ) crystallizes in the space group C2/c and ( 2 ) in P2₁/n, with similar unit‐cell volumes and Z = 4. The asymmetric unit of ( 1 ) is one half of the molecule, which resides on a crystallographic twofold axis. Both ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) display stacking of the molecules, indicating a planar (bpy)MBr₂ skeleton in each case. The structure of ( 1 ) exhibits columns with C—H_(β)…Br hydrogen bonds between consecutive layers which conforms to a static (β,β) linkage between layers. In the molecular plane, ( 1 ) shows double C—H_(α)…Br hydrogen bonds self‐repeating along the b axis, the planar molecules being connected into infinite belts. Compound ( 2 ) has no crystallographic symmetry and forms π‐dimer pairs as supermolecules, which then stack parallel to the a axis. The π‐dimer‐pair supermolecules exhibit (Pt—)Br…Br(—Pt) contacts 3.6937 (7) Å] to neighbouring π‐dimer pairs crosslinking the columns. The structure of ( 2 ) reveals many C—H…F(—C) interactions between F atoms and aromatic C—H groups, in addition to those between F atoms and methylene C—H groups.