Symmetry in Recognition of Supramolecular Synthons–Competition between Hydrogen Bonding and Coordination Bond in Multinuclear CuII–4f Complexes with Bicompartmental Schiff Base Ligand

Classic Cu–O coordination bonds in 1 or elongated semi-coordination ones in 2 and 3 were applied to construct CuII–4f complexes composed of trinuclear subunits linked through μ-NO3− ions with formulae given as [Cu2Tm(H2tehy)2]2(NO3)6·H2O, (1), {[Cu2Ho(H2tehy)2(NO3)2][Cu2Ho(H2tehy)2(H2O)2]}(NO3)4·2H2O, (2), and {[Cu2Er(H2tehy)2(H2O)]2([Cu2Er(H2tehy)2(NO3)]2}(NO3)10·2H2O·4CH3OH, (3), where H2tehy = C19H20N2O4 is a tetrahydroxy Schiff base ligand. Topological analysis showed that the same characteristic motif of coordination accompanied by hydrogen bonds involving the uncoordinated nitrate oxygen atom and ligand’s phenoxy O atoms is responsible for linking trinuclear subunits into a hexanuclear one as well as for bridging the hexanuclear coordination units in 3 into a 1D supramolecular polymer, with the Cu–O distance being 3.19(1) Å, much longer than the limit of a semi-coordination bond (3.07 Å). The Cambridge Structural Database was used to discuss issues of crystallographic criteria (distance and angular preferences) for the assessment of the stabilizing or destabilizing effect of hydrogen bonding on coordination. The presented results show that the symmetrically repeated arrangement of molecules may provide a useful tool for identifying higher order non-covalently bonded supramolecular aggregates. The complexes 1–3 have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, FTIR, and thermal analysis. The magnetic studies indicated the ferromagnetic interaction between CuII and HoIII ions.