The crystal and molecular structure of trimethyltin chloride at 135 K. A highly volatile organotin polymer

Abstract

Abstract : Trimethyltin chloride is the key starting material in the laboratory synthesis of the trimethyltin derivatives most subject to study. It is an article of commerce, and has itself been extensively studied by a great variety of spectroscopic and physical methods. There in the literature starting in 1970 a trail of oft referenced private communications which describe a yet unpublished X-ray structure which is incorrect. In addition, the structure of the analogous triphenyltin chloride, which is monomeric at ambient temperature, is said to undergo a change on cooling to a chlorine bridged polymer, but this suggestion is based upon NQR data a 77K which cannot be reproduced. The structure of the homologous trimethyltin fluoride cannot be solved because of disorder, and thus the widely-quoted bridging halide structures for R3SnX compounds are being confirmed here in there case of the title compound for the first time. Solid trimethyltin chloride at 135K is associated through bent chlorine bridges into a one-dimensional polymer containing non-planer C3Sn moieties in a distorted, axially-most electronegative, trigonal bipyramid at tin. (Author)