Spectral and structural studies of a new oxalato-bridged dinuclear copper(II) complex having two 3-(thiophen-2-yl)-1,10-phenanthroline ligands in a trans configuration

In this paper, spectral and structural characterizations of a new dinuclear copper(II) complex (1), formulated as [Cu2(3-(thiophen-2-yl)-1,10-phenanthroline)2(μ-oxalate)(DMF)2](ClO4)2 (DMF = N,N′-dimethylformamide), have been described. Two five-coordinate copper(II) centers are bridged by a four-dentate oxalate dianion forming a planar molecular geometry with the Cu–Cu separation of 5.117(4) Å. The two ligands in 1 adopt a trans configuration to each other and two monodentate DMF molecules are positioned at each side of the molecular plane. In addition, typical π–π stacking interactions are found between adjacent phenanthroline and thiophene rings forming a layered packing structure. A compressed pyramidal configurational alteration is observed for each copper(II) center when the temperature is decreased from 291(2) to 100(2) K.