The pyridine-containing aza-thia macrocycle 3,11,19-trithia-[3.3.3]pyridinophane (10)
IntroductionCrystal engineering remains one of the most fascinating areas of research in modern inorganic chemistry. It has given rise to many remarkable structures by using transition metals through the development of coordination polymers, the construction of molecular architectures and the self-assembly of complex molecular structures.[1Ϫ12] The coordination chemistry of pyridine-containing macrocycles is of particular interest due to the effective coordination ability of pyridine.[13] Parallel to this, binuclear macrocyclic complexes have also attracted much attention as catalysts and models for certain metalloenzymes. [14,15] There is also a need to understand the nature and extent of metal-metal interactions. Schröder et al.[16Ϫ18] and others [19Ϫ22] have reported a series of coordination polymers derived from Ag I and thioether macrocycles 1Ϫ5 as well as other functionalised thioether macrocycles. [23,24] The search for appropriate organic building blocks for the construction of coordination polymers and the study of binuclear complexes led us to investigate the ligand 10. The intramolecular layout of the three pyridine rings in 10 means that it is able to form a cone-like conformation similar to that of calixarenes and thus 10 was expected to exhibit interesting complexation properties.We report herein a new synthetic route to the macrocycle 10 and the preparation of a series of its transition metal [a]