On the role played by the chirality of ligands on the aggregation of heterometallic Cu -Hg complexes.

Copper(II) complexes constructed from enantiopure Schiff-base ligands derived from o-vanillin and methionine or from their racemic mixture have been employed as metalloligands towards mercury(II) ions. The nature of the heterometallic Cu -Hg complexes (coordination polymers or oligonucler species), resulted from the reactions of the copper(II) complexes with HgCl or HgI , is different. The enantiopure metalloligands lead to chiral coordination polymers, [{Cu(R-/S-valmet)(H O)} HgCl ]·5H O·CH OH and [{Cu (R-/S-valmet) (μ-H O)(H O) }HgI ]·4H O. The reaction of the racemic mixture of the metalloligands with HgX affords discrete complexes: [{Cu(R,S-valmet)(H O) } HgCl ]·2H O and [{Cu(R,S-valmet)(H O)(CH OH)} Hg I ].