The self-assembly of a new flexible tritopic pyrazine-pyridine ligand(pz-3-py) with HgX2(X = Cl, Br) was investigated.
The results show that coordinated chloride and bromide anions play different roles, and two architecturally different
coordination polymers were obtained with the anions used. Where X = Cl, in [Hg( μ3-pz-3-py)Cl2]n (1), the 2D network
is isolated, while for X = Br, in [Hg( μ-pz-3-py)Br2]n (2), a 1D zigzag chain is constructed. Our results show that
noncovalent interactions such as hydrogen bond, halogen 3 3 3 halogen, and halogen 3 3 3 π interactions, when acting
cooperatively, are driving forces for the selection of different structures.
