Tetrakis(μ-2-phenylacetato-κ2O:O′) bis{(DMSO κO′)]copper(II)}(Cu-Cu)]

Carboxylate groups may interact as bridging ligands with divalent transition metals present in biological environments, thereby altering the bioavailability of drugs. Moreover, it is well known that many complexes of divalent transition metals are capable of catalyzing the hydrolysis of RNA (Stem et al., 1990; Kimura, 1994). The coordination chemistry of Cu2+ complexes bridged by phenylacetate has been reported. We have found only two reports of a dinuclear Co2+ complexes, namely tetrakis (phenylacetato)bis[(quinoline-N)-cobalt(II)](Cui et al.,1999),μ-aqua-κ2O:O-di-μ-phenylacetato-κ4O:O′-bis[(1,10-phenanthroline-κ2N,N′) (phenyl acetato-κO)cobalt(II)](Kong et al., 2005) and dinuclear Cu2+ complex, namely tetrakis (phenylacetato)bis-[(N,N-dimethylformamide)copper(II)], in which all phenylacetate groups are in bidendate bridging modes. In this presentation, the crystal structure of a new dimeric complex obtained by reaction of phenylacetic acid with copper(II) acetate is described. Each Cu(II) atom is six-coordinated by five O atoms from carboxylate groups of the phenylacetate and DMSO ligands and is completed by a Cu-Cu bond in a strongly distorted octahedral coordination, in which an inversion center is located at the mid-point of the Cu-Cu bond with a Cu...Cu distance of 2.6321(4) Å. This is longer than the 2.251(2)Å distance found in the polymeric complex [Cu2(C8H7O2)4]n. However, it is similar to the 2.6414(8) Å and 2.6261(8)Å distances found in the complex [Cu2(C8H7O2)4(C3H7NO)2] (Kong et al., 2005). The Cu-O phenylacetate bond length lies in the range 1.9644(14) to 1.9734 (14) Å and the Cu-ODMSO bond length is 2.1319(13) Å.