THE STRUCTURE AND MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF COPPER L-TARTRATE, CuC₄H₄O₆ 3H₂O. Hüseyin Soylu, Gazi University, Gazi Education Faculty, Physics Department, 06500, Besevler, Ankara, Turkey

The investigation of the crystal structure of copper L-tartrate was taken as a part of study of coordination of copper (II) complexes and for providing basic structural data to make clear the influence of structural characteristics of complexes on their biological activitites. The first compound to be studied in this series was manganese L-tartrate tetrahydrate¹.

The title compound crystallises in the monoclinic space group P2₁(P2₁/m) with a=8.374(4)Å, b=12.849(7)Å, c=8.758(6)Å and Z=4. The structure was solved by Patterson and Fourier method and refined by full matrix least squares technique to R=0.10 for 580 independent reflections collected photographically.

Each Cu atom forms a total of five bonds with three tartrate molecules. A six bond is formed with water, resulting in a distorted octahedral coordination geogetry. Each copper atom are chelated by two tartrate groups and each tartrate group chelates two copper atoms. The coordination around each copper atom is completed by a water molecule and a non-chelating corboxy-oxygen atom of another tartrate group. The dimensions of the tartrate groups are significantly different from those found manganese L-tartrate tetrahydrate.