Tetrahedral zinc in tetrakis(1-methyl-1H- imidazole-jN 3 )zinc bis(tetrafluorido- borate) Jan Reedijk, a,b * Gerard A. van Albada, a Bart Limburg, a Ilpo Mutikainen c and Urho Turpeinen c a Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Leiden University, PO Box 9502, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands, b Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, PO Box 2455 Riyadh 11451, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and c University of Helsinki, Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland Correspondence e-mail: reedijk@chem.leidenuniv.nl Received 19 November 2011; accepted 20 December 2011 Key indicators: single-crystal X-ray study; T = 173 K; mean (C–C) = 0.004 A ˚ ; R factor = 0.027; wR factor = 0.068; data-to-parameter ratio = 13.1. In the title compound, [Zn(C 4 H 6 N 2 ) 4 ](BF 4 ) 2 , the Zn II ion is in a slightly distorted tetrahedral coordination geometry, with Zn—N distances in the range 1.980 (2)–1.991 (2) A ˚ . The tetrahedral angles are in the range 104.93 (9)–118.81 (9)  . Related literature For related structures, see: Chen et al. (1996). For the synthesis and properties of the title compound, see: Reedijk (1969). The crystal was mounted using the oil-drop method, see: Kottke & Stalke (1993). Experimental Crystal data [Zn(C 4 H 6 N 2 ) 4 ](BF 4 ) 2 M r = 567.42 Orthorhombic, P2 1 2 1 2 1 a = 7.257 (1) A ˚ b = 16.023 (1) A ˚ c = 21.040 (2) A ˚ V = 2446.5 (4) A ˚ 3 Z =4 Mo K radiation  = 1.09 mm 1 T = 173 K 0.30  0.30  0.20 mm Data collection Nonius KappaCCD diffractometer Absorption correction: multi-scan (SADABS; Sheldrick, 1996) T min = 0.737, T max = 0.812 17949 measured reflections 4184 independent reflections 3782 reflections with I >2(I) R int = 0.024 Refinement R[F 2 >2(F 2 )] = 0.027 wR(F 2 ) = 0.068 S = 1.08 4184 reflections 320 parameters H-atom parameters constrained Á max = 0.29 e A ˚ 3 Á min = 0.22 e A ˚ 3 Absolute structure: Flack (1983), 1690 Friedel pairs Flack parameter: 0.038 (11) Data collection: COLLECT (Nonius, 2002); cell refinement: DIRAX (Duisenberg, 1992); data reduction: COLLECT/EVAL (Nonius, 2002); program(s) used to solve structure: SHELXS97 (Sheldrick, 2008); program(s) used to refine structure: SHELXL97 (Sheldrick, 2008); molecular graphics: SHELXTL (Sheldrick, 2008); software used to prepare material for publication: SHELXTL. The authors are indebted to several generations of BSc, MSc and PhD students who have tried to reproduce the compound and to grow crystals of diffraction quality. Supplementary data and figures for this paper are available from the IUCr electronic archives (Reference: BV2196). References Chen, X.-M., Huang, X.-C., Xu, Z.-T. & Huang, X.-Y. (1996). Acta Cryst. C52, 2482–2484. Duisenberg, A. J. M. (1992). J. Appl. Cryst. 25, 92–96. Flack, H. D. (1983). Acta Cryst. A39, 876–881. Kottke, T. & Stalke, D. (1993). J. Appl. Cryst. 26, 615–619. Nonius (2002). COLLECT. Nonius BV, Delft, The Netherlands. Reedijk, J. (1969). Inorg. Chim. Acta, 3, 517–522. Sheldrick, G. M. (1996). SADABS. University of Go ¨ttingen, Germany. Sheldrick, G. M. (2008). Acta Cryst. A64, 112–122. metal-organic compounds m90 Reedijk et al. doi:10.1107/S1600536811054821 Acta Cryst. (2012). E68, m90 Acta Crystallographica Section E Structure Reports Online ISSN 1600-5368