A novel tridentate coordination mode for the carbonatonickel system exhibited in an unusual hexanuclear nickel(II) μ3-carbonato-bridged complex

The fixation of CO2 at ambient temperature has been achieved by the reaction of Ni(cod)(2) and TMEDA in CO2 saturated THF that yields a novel hexanuclear nickel(II) mu(3)-carbonato bridged complex [Ni-6(mu(3)-CO3)(4)(TMEDA)(6)(H2O)(12)](OH)(4) in 59% yield. The complex was characterised by MS analysis and the structure corroborated by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. The complex exhibits a rare carbonato binding mode for Ni(II) complexes and moderately strong antiferromagnetic interactions.