Abstract

The title polymeric compound, {(C 13H 16N 2)[Co(C 10H 3O 8)(C 13H 14N 2)(H 2O) 2] 2· 5H 2O} n , is an ionic structure comprising an anionic two-dimensional mesh characterized by a {[Co(Hbtc)(bpp)(H 2O) 2] -}2 motif [Hbtc is 5-carboxybenzene-1,2,4-tri-carboxyl- ate and bpp is 1,3-bis-(4-pyrid-yl)propane], with inter-spersed 4,4?-(propane-1,3-di-yl)dipyridinium cations, denoted (H 2bpp) 2+, and water mol-ecules providing the charge balance and structure stabilization. The reticular mesh consists of two independent types of [Co(H 2O) 2] 2+ cationic nodes (lying on inversion centres), inter-connected in the [ 01] direction by two independent sets of neutral bridging bpp ligands, both types of ligands being split by non-equivalent twofold axes. One set is formed by genuinely symmetric moieties, while those in the second set are only symmetric by disorder in the central propane bridge. These chains contain only one type of Co II centre and one type of bpp ligand; the metal cations therein are laterally bridged by Hbtc anions, thus forming transverse chains of alternating types of Co II cations. The elemental motif of the resulting grid is a highly distorted parallelogram, with metal-metal distances of 13.5242 (14) Å in the bpp direction and 9.105 (2) Å in the Hbtc direction, and a large inter-nal angle of 138.42 (18)°. These two-dimensional structures have a profusion of hydrogen-bonding interactions with each other, either directly (with the aqua mol-ecules as donors and the Hbtc anions as acceptors) or mediated by the unbound (H 2bpp) 2+ cations and water mol-ecules of hydration. These inter-actions generate a very complex hydrogen-bonding scheme involving all of the available N-H and O-H groups and which links these two-dimensional grids into a three-dimensional network. © 2011 International Union of Crystallography.