[1,2-Bis(diisopropylphosphanyl)ethane-κ2 P,P′]dichloridonickel(II)

In the crystal structure of title compound, [NiCl2(C14H32P2)], the NiII atom lies on a twofold rotation axis and shows a slightly distorted square-planar coordination geometry, with a dihedral angle of 10.01 (8)° between the cis-Cl—Ni—Cl and cis-P—Ni—P planes. There is no significant intermolecular interaction except very weak C—H⋯Cl interactions. The crystal studied was a racemic twin.

In the crystal structure of title compound, [NiCl 2 (C 14 H 32 P 2 )], the Ni II atom lies on a twofold rotation axis and shows a slightly distorted square-planar coordination geometry, with a dihedral angle of 10.01 (8) between the cis-Cl-Ni-Cl and cis-P-Ni-P planes. There is no significant intermolecular interaction except very weak C-HÁ Á ÁCl interactions. The crystal studied was a racemic twin.
Data collection: CrysAlis CCD (Oxford Diffraction, 2009); cell refinement: CrysAlis RED (Oxford Diffraction, 2009); data reduction: CrysAlis RED; program(s) used to solve structure: SHELXS97 (Sheldrick, 2008); program(s) used to refine structure: SHELXL97 (Sheldrick, 2008); molecular graphics: ORTEP-3 for Windows (Farrugia, 1997); software used to prepare material for publication: WinGX (Farrugia, 1999). The synthesis of the current complex [Ni (dippe)Cl 2 ] was documented 21 years ago (Scott et al., 1990) and still the corresponding X-ray structure of this compound has not been reported. This type of nickel complexes are useful starting materials for the preparation of catalysts and catalytic precursors, for a series of active catalyst in a wide variety of model reactions (Vicic & Jones, 1997) and catalytic systems (Arévalo & García, 2010).

Structure Reports Online
In the title complex, [Ni(dippe)Cl 2 ], the Ni II atom is coordinated by two P atoms of dippe ligand and two chloride anions In the crystal packing, there are two intermolecular contacts of the type hydrogen bond (Table 2) mainly between the carbon donor atom of the dippe to Cl1 chloride atom acceptor of the metallic complex, C5-H5A···Cl1 2.91 Å and C3-H3B···Cl1 2.94 Å.

Experimental
A concentrated THF solution of the complex [Ni(dippe)Cl 2 ], prepared according to the reported procedure (Scott et al., 1990), was stored in a freezer at -30 °C. After a couple of days suitable crystals for X-ray diffraction studies were obtained.

Refinement
H atoms attached to C atoms were placed in geometrically idealized positions, and refined as riding on their parent atoms, with C-H distances fixed to 0.98 (methyl CH 3 ), 0.99 (methylene CH 2 ) and 1.00 Å (methine CH), and with U iso (H) = 1.5U eq (methyl C) or 1.2U eq (C). The crystal studied was a racemic twin; the minor twin component refined to 47 (3)%.
supplementary materials sup-2 Figures   Fig. 1. The molecular structure of the title compound. Displacement ellipsoids are drawn at the 50% probability level and H atoms are shown as circles of arbitrary size.

Special details
Geometry. All s.u.'s (except the s.u. in the dihedral angle between two l.s. planes) are estimated using the full covariance matrix. The cell s.u.'s are taken into account individually in the estimation of s.u.'s in distances, angles and torsion angles; correlations between s.u.'s in cell parameters are only used when they are defined by crystal symmetry. An approximate (isotropic) treatment of cell s.u.'s is used for estimating s.u.'s involving l.s. planes.
Refinement. Refinement of F 2 against ALL reflections. The weighted R-factor wR and goodness of fit S are based on F 2 , conventional R-factors R are based on F, with F set to zero for negative F 2 . The threshold expression of F 2 > 2σ(F 2 ) is used only for calculating Rfactors(gt) etc. and is not relevant to the choice of reflections for refinement. R-factors based on F 2 are statistically about twice as large as those based on F, and R-factors based on ALL data will be even larger.