Trinuclear nickel complexes with triplesalen ligands: simultaneous occurrence of mixed valence and valence tautomerism in the oxidized species.

The coordination chemistries of the triple tetradentate triplesalen ligands H(6)talen, H(6)talen(t)(-)(Bu)(2), and H(6)talen(NO)(2) have been investigated with nickel(II). These triplesalen ligands provide three salen-like coordination environments bridged in a meta-phenylene arrangement by a phloroglucinol backbone. The structures of the complexes [(talen)Ni(II)(3)], [(talen(t)(-)(Bu)(2)Ni(II)(3)], and [(talen(NO)(2)Ni(II)(3)] have been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction.