2015. 56, 1 – UDC 548.73:547.13:546.47 CHARACTERIZATION AND CRYSTAL STRUCTURE OF A NOVEL TETRANUCLEAR ZINC(II) COMPLEX DERIVED FROM N,N-BIS(2-HYDROXY-5-METHOXYBENZYLIDENE)PROPANE-1,3-DIAMINE G.-H. Sheng1, X.-S. Cheng2, Z.- L. You2, H.-L. Zhu1 1School of Life Sciences, Shandong University of Technology, P. R. China E-mail: hailiang_zhu@163.com (Hai-Liang Zhu) Received May, 21, 2013 2Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Liaoning Normal University, P. R. China E-mail: youzhonglu@yahoo.com.cn (Zhong-Lu You) Revised — August, 21, 2013 A novel tetranuclear zinc(II) complex [Zn4Br4L2(H2L)], where L and H2L are the dianionic and zwitterionic forms of N,N-bis(2-hydroxy-5-methoxybenzylidene)propane-1,3-diamine, is prepared and structurally characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectrum, and single crystal X-ray crystallography. <...> The inner Zn atoms are five-coordinated in a square pyramidal geometry, and the outer Zn atoms are four-coordinated in a tetrahedral geometry. <...> Polynuclear structures of complexes with bridging groups are currently attracting much attention for their interesting structures and wide applications [ 1—3]. <...> Schiff bases derived from salicylaldehyde and its derivatives are a kind of versatile ligands in coordination chemistry. <...> The rational design and construction of polynuclear structures of complexes with Schiff bases are of particular interest in coordination and structural chemistry. <...> A preferred way to construct polynuclear complexes is the use of suitable bridging groups, such as 3N , NCS–, N(CN) , dicarboxylate, 4,4-bipy, and so on [ 4—7]. 2 A number of polynuclear complexes derived from bis-Schiff bases have been reported [ 8—10 ]. <...> As a continuation of our work on preparing polynuclear complexes with novel structures, in this paper, a new bis-Schiff base ligand across-bridged tetranuclear zinc(II) complex [Zn4Br4L2(H2L)], where L and H2L are the dianionic and zwitterionic forms of N,N-bis(2-hydroxy-5-methoxybenzylidene)propane1,3-diamine (Scheme 1), was obtained. <...> IR spectra were recorded on a Jasco FT/IR-4000 spectrometer as KBr pellets in the range 4000—400 cm–1. <...> Single crystal structural X-ray diffraction was carried out on a Bruker SMART 1000 CCD <...>