Syntheses, crystal structure, luminescent behaviors and Hirshfeld surface of salts with imidazole and benzimidazole-yl scaffolds

To explore the new photoluminescent materials, two new salts with imidazole and benzimida-zole moieties, namely, [HIBI] +Z- ( Z = MBS - ( 1 ) and BS- ( 2 ) [IBI = 2-((1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)-1H- benzimidazole, MBS = p-methyl phenyl sulfonic acid, BS= benzene-sulfonic acid], were obtained through reacting IBI and phenyl sulfonic acids by slow evaporation method, respectively. Compounds 1 and 2 have been characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, IR, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and thermo-gravimetric analyses (TGA). In both compounds, a set of hydrogen bonds (C/N-H center dot center dot center dot O) can be evidently ob-served, through which a three-dimensional framework will be fabricated. The luminescent spectra show that the emission maximal peaks in compounds 1 and 2 can be observed to be 460 and 477 nm, re-spectively. By comparison with the free IBI, the emission maxima of compounds 1 and 2 are obviously red-shifted about 151 and 168 nm, respectively. The Hirshfield surface analysis further confirms that the C center dot center dot center dot C close contacts can account for the photoluminescent spectra.(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.