Di-μ3-chlorido-tetra-μ2-chlorido-dichloridotetrakis(N,N-diethylethane-1,2-diamine-κ2
 N,N′)tetracadmium(II)

In the title compound, [Cd4Cl8(C6H16N2)4], the Cd2+ cations and Cl− anions form M
 4Cl8 clusters with six of the Cl− ions bridging Cd2+ cations and two being pendant. Each Cd2+ cation has distorted octahedral coordination completed by four Cl− ions and two N atoms of the asymmetrical bidentate amino ligand. The cluster consists of pairs of face-sharing hexahedra linked by a shared edge.


Structure description
The coordination chemistry of cadmium is of interest to a wide range of disciplines ranging from toxicology to catalysis (Melnik et al., 2009;Andersen et al., 1984).
In the crystal structure, each complex unit has four amino ligands with two nitrogen atoms of each ligand coordinating to one Cd 2+ ion (Fig. 1). The complex is centrosymmetric with the asymmetric unit consisting of half of the complex unit. One ligand of the asymmetric unit is disordered with two components of 0.553 (13) and 0.447 (13) occupancy.
The Cd 2+ cations and Cl À ions form Cd 4 Cl 8 clusters with six bridging and two pendant Cl À ions. CdÁ Á ÁCl distances range from 2.5158 (19) to 2.8227 (18) Å in the cluster. A similar M 4 Cl 8 core has been reported for an Ni II complex (Kermagoret et al., 2007). Each Cd 2+ cation has a distorted octahedral coordination completed by four Cl À ions and two nitrogen atoms of the bidentate amino ligand. The cluster consists of pairs of face-sharing hexahedra linked by a shared edge. The complex units are linked by intermolecular N-HÁ Á ÁCl contacts with NÁ Á ÁCl distances in the range 3.407 (6) to 3.548 (6) Å and N-HÁ Á ÁCl angles in the range 140.5 to 146.3 (Fig. 2, Table 1). Each complex unit donates four and accepts four N-HÁ Á ÁCl contacts with each pendant Cl À accepting two bonds from different units.

data reports Synthesis and crystallization
The cadmium complex was prepared by direct reaction of equimolar amounts of cadmium dichloride and N-diethylaminoethylamine in ethanol at room temperature. The white solid obtained was separated by filtration after three hours, washed with 5 ml cold ethanol and then three times (5 ml each) with diethyl ether. Based on the cadmium dichloride used, the yield was 85%. Crystallization from warm methanol solution in open air produced colourless crystals.

Figure 1
An ORTEP representation of the complex showing 50% probability ellipsoids (only the major component of the disordered ligand is shown). Symmetry code: (i) 1 À x, 1 À y, Àz.
where P = (F o 2 + 2F c 2 )/3 (Δ/σ) max = 0.001 Δρ max = 1.01 e Å −3 Δρ min = −1.42 e Å −3 Special details Geometry. All esds (except the esd in the dihedral angle between two l.s. planes) are estimated using the full covariance matrix. The cell esds are taken into account individually in the estimation of esds in distances, angles and torsion angles; correlations between esds in cell parameters are only used when they are defined by crystal symmetry. An approximate (isotropic) treatment of cell esds is used for estimating esds involving l.s. planes. electronic reprint data reports data-2 Refinement. Non-hydrogen atoms were refined with anisotropic displacement parameters. All hydrogen atoms were placed in calculated positions and refined using a riding model. Methyl C-H bonds were fixed at 0.96 Å, with displacement parameters 1.5 times U eq (C). C-H distances for methylene groups were set to 0.97 Å and their U iso (H) set to 1.2 times the U eq (C). N-H distances for methylene groups were set to 0.89 Å and their U iso (H) set to 1.2 times the U eq (N).  (7) 0.0026 (7) 0.0002 (6)  Cl3 0.0386 (9) 0.0483 (9) 0.0544 (10) 0.0014 (7) −0.0098 (7) −0.0096 (7) (9)