Temperature‐dependent analysis of thermal motion, disorder and structures of tris(ethylenediamine)zinc(II) sulfate and tris(ethylenediamine)copper(II) sulfate

The crystal structures of the title compounds have been determined in the temperature range 140–290 K for the zinc complex, and 190–270 K for the copper complex. The two structures are isostructural in the trigonal space group with the sulfate anion severely disordered on a site with 32 ( D 3 ) symmetry. This sulfate disorder leads to a disordered three‐dimensional hydrogen‐bond network, with the N—H atoms acting as donors and the sulfate O atoms as acceptors. The displacement parameters of the N and C atoms in both compounds contain disorder contributions in the out‐of‐ligand plane direction owing to ring puckering and/or disorder in hydrogen bonding. In the Zn compound the vibrational amplitudes in the bond directions are closely similar. Their differences show no significant deviations from rigid‐bond behaviour. In the Cu compound, a (presumably) dynamic Jahn–Teller effect is identified from a temperature‐independent contribution to the displacement ellipsoids of the N atom along the N—Cu bond. These conclusions derive from analyses of the atomic displacement parameters with the Hirshfeld test, with rigid‐body models at different temperatures, and with a normal coordinate analysis. This analysis considers the atomic displacement parameters (ADPs) from all different temperatures simultaneously and provides a detailed description of both the thermal motion and the disorder in the cation. The Jahn–Teller radii of the Cu compound derived on the basis of the ADP analysis and from the bond distances in the statically distorted low‐temperature phase [Lutz (2010). Acta Cryst. C 66 , m330–m335] are found to be the same.