Crystal structures of two formamidinium hexafluoridophosphate salts, one with batch-dependent disorder

Abstract

Syntheses of the acyclic amidinium salts, morpholinoformamidinium hexafluoridophosphate [OC4H8N—CH=NH2]PF6 or C5H11N2O+·PF6−, 1, and pyrrolidinoformamidinium hexafluoridophosphate [C4H8N—CH= NH2]PF6 or C5H11N2+·PF6−, 2, were carried out by heating either morpholine or pyrrolidine with triethyl orthoformate and ammonium hexafluoridophosphate. Crystals of 1 obtained directly from the reaction mixture contain one cation and one anion in the asymmetric unit. The structure involves cations linked in chains parallel to the b axis by N—H...O hydrogen bonds in space group Pbca, with glide-related chains pointing in opposite directions. Crystals of 1 obtained by recrystallization from ethanol, however, showed a similar unit cell and the same basic structure, but unexpectedly, there was positional disorder [occupancy ratio 0.639 (4):0.361 (4)] in one of the cation chains, which lowered the crystal symmetry to the non-centrosymmetric space group Pca21, with two cations and anions in the asymmetric unit. In the pyrrolidino compound, 2, cations and anions are ordered and are stacked separately, with zigzag N—H...F hydrogen-bonding between stacks, forming ribbons parallel to (101), extended along the b-axis direction. Slight differences in the delocalized C=N distances between the two cations may reflect the inductive effect of the oxygen atom in the morpholino compound.

Keywords

• crystal structure
• formamidinium ion
• nitrogen heterocycles
• hexafluoridophosphate
• hydrogen bonding
• disorder