On Two Glycine Zinc Sulfate Phases with Exotic Cation Coordination Geometries

Two hitherto hardly characterized glycine zinc sulfates were identified in the product of a batch production process for glycine zinc sulfates of the BASF Company: Gly · ZnSO 4 · 2H 2 O and β‐Gly‐ZnSO 4 . The crystal structures were solved from high resolution synchrotron X‐ray powder diffraction data. Gly · ZnSO 4 · 2H 2 O is the zinc analogue to an isotypic copper compound with space group P 2 1 / c (no. 14) and a = 7.8092(1) Å, b = 12.3979(2) Å, c = 8.3732(1) Å, β = 90.673(1) and V = 810.62(2) ų. The crystal structure of the hitherto unknown β‐Gly‐ZnSO 4 with space group P 2 1 / c (no. 14) and a = 9.2577(1) Å, b = 5.1268(1) Å, c = 12.9926(1) Å, β = 90.267(1) and V = 616.65(1) Å 3 was solved ab initio. In both crystal structures the zinc cations exhibit exotic, fivefold coordination arrangements: squared ZnO 5 ‐pyramids are present in the structure of the dihydrate, whereas the crystal structure of β‐Gly‐ZnSO 4 contains trigonal ZnO 5 ‐bipyramids.