Enantioselective assembling into tetra- and octanuclear structures by deprotonation of copper(II) complexes of N-[(5-methylimidazol-4-yl)methylidene]- dl-phenylalanine and its l-form ligand

Two copper(II) complexes with the protonated ligands [Cu ^IIClHL ^dl] and [Cu ^IIClHL ^l] were prepared, where HL ^dl denotes N-[(5-methylimidazol-4-yl)methylidene]- dl-phenylalanine and HL ^l denotes its l-form ligand. The deprotonation of [Cu ^IIClHL ^dl] at the imidazole moiety gave an imidazolato-bridged cyclic tetranuclear arrayed [Cu ^IIL ^d(H ₂O)] and [Cu ^IIL ^l(H ₂O)] species, while the deprotonation of [Cu ^IIClHL ^l] gave an octanuclear structure [Cu ^II ₈L ^l ₈·4H ₂O] in which two cyclic tetranuclear species are linked by an intertetramer Cu-O (carboxylate) coordination bond.