The crystal structure determination based on 90 K data of the title imine ligand, C 18 H 10 ClNO, revealed non-merohedral twinning with three twin domains. In our experience, this is an indication of an ordering phase transition. Consequently, the structure was redetermined with higher temperature data, and a reversible phase transition was discovered. The higher temperature phase is indeed an ordered structure. At the higher temperature, the 4-chlorophenyl group has rotated by ca 7 into a crystallographic mirror plane. Warming the crystal from 90 K to 250 K changes the space group from triclinic P1, to monoclinic P2 1 /m. Diverse non-classical interactions are present in the crystal packing, and these are described for the phase change reported in this work. The crystal structure of the title imine ligand, measured at 100 K, has been reported on previously [Kovach et al. (2011). J. Mol. Struct. 992, 33-38].
Chemical contextTransition metal complexes that can photochemically release carbon monoxide upon exposure to visible light have been reported recently (Chakraborty et al., 2014;Stenger-Smith et al., 2017). Facile release of carbon monoxide has been observed in manganese carbonyls containing acenaphthalene derivatives (Carrington et al., 2015) including the ligand MIAN {2-[(4-chlorophenyl)imino]acenapthylen-1-one}, the subject of this study, shown in the Scheme. Our crystal structure determination of MIAN at 90 K agrees with the structure reported by Kovach et al. (2011) at 100 K. In particular, the structure occurs in the triclinic space group P1 and it is found to be a twin. In the NMR study of MIAN by Kovach et al., major and minor species were detected in CDCl 3 at room temperature and a single species at 388 K in DMSO-d 6 . They suggested that an E to Z equilibration with the E form dominant takes place at the elevated temperature. The occurrence of a low-symmetry space group and twinning are indicative of a solid-solid phase change, and we were curious about the structure at higher temperatures. While a change of conformation from E to Z would be a very large solid-state change, an alternative structural change would be possible. At 250 K, a small solid-state change was indicated and the new space group is P2 1 /m ( phase). The only difference, aside from small differences in unit-cell dimensions, is a rotation of the iminoacenapthylen-1-one group into a crystallographic mirror plane. In each phase, the molecule remains in the E conformation.
Structural commentaryThe crystal structure was initially determined at 90 K. Three twin domains were found, with relative contributions of 0.441 (2), 0.058 (3), 0.060 (3). Redetermination of the structure at higher temperatures validated our suspicion that the structure was temperature-sensitive. In order to more easily compare the low-temperature and room-temperature crystal structures, a non-standard setting for the triclinic form was selected. In this setting the shortest axis is the b axis. The b axis is then the unique axis in the monoclinic setting of P2 1 /...