In the title compound, [CoBr(C 2 H 8 N 2 ) 2 (C 4 H 11 N)]Br 2 , the cobalt(III) ion has a distorted octahedral coordination environment and is surrounded by four N atoms in the equatorial plane made up of three N atoms from the two ethylenediamine ligands and the remaining N from the n-butyl substituent, with the other N atom from the ethylenediamine ligand and the Br atom occupying the axial positions. In the crystal, the complex cation and the two counter-anions are linked via N-HÁ Á ÁBr and C-HÁ Á ÁBr hydrogen bonds, forming a threedimensional network. The crystal studied was refined as a two-component inversion twin.
Structure descriptionMixed-ligand cobalt(III) complexes exhibit antitumor, antibacterial, antimicrobial, radiosenzitation and cytotoxicity activities (Sayed et al., 1992;Teicher et al., 1990;Arslan et al., 2009;Delehanty et al., 2008). Cobalt is an essential and integral component of vitamin B12 and is therefore found physiologically in most tissues. Complexes of cobalt are useful for nutritional supplementation to provide cobalt in a form, which effectively increases its bioavailability, for instance, vitamin B12 by microorganisms present in the gut. In addition, cobalt(III) complexes are known for electron-transfer and ligandsubstitution reactions, which find applications in chemical and biological systems. Our present research concerns the design and synthesis of cobalt(III) complexes with the objective of understanding the structure-reactivity correlation. Substituting a different amino ligand for the MeNH 2 moiety can yield complexes of similar structure, but with