metal-organic papers Acta Cryst. (2006). E62, m2011–m2013 doi:10.1107/S1600536806028960 Russo et al.  (C 13 H 22 N)[Cd(NCS) 3 ] m2011 Acta Crystallographica Section E Structure Reports Online ISSN 1600-5368 catena-Poly[benzyltriethylammonium [tri-l-thiocyanato-j 4 N:S;j 2 S:N-cadmate(II)]] Luca Russo, a Raj Pal Sharma, b Subhranshu Sharma, b Rajni Sharma b and Kari Rissanen a * a Nanoscience Center, Department of Chemistry, University of Jyva ¨skyla ¨, PO Box 35, 40014 Jyva ¨skyla ¨, Finland, and b Department of Chemistry, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160 014, India Correspondence e-mail: krissane@cc.jyu.fi Key indicators Single-crystal X-ray study T = 173 K Mean (C–C) = 0.004 A ˚ R factor = 0.029 wR factor = 0.052 Data-to-parameter ratio = 21.1 For details of how these key indicators were automatically derived from the article, see http://journals.iucr.org/e. Received 16 May 2006 Accepted 25 July 2006 # 2006 International Union of Crystallography All rights reserved The title compound, {[(C 6 H 5 CH 2 )N(C 2 H 5 ) 3 ][Cd(SCN) 3 ]} n , contains benzyltriethylammonium cations lying between one-dimensional chains of stoichiometry {[Cd(SCN) 3 ]  } n . Each Cd 2+ ion is 3N,3S-hexacoordinated by thiocyanate ligands in an octahedral arrangement. The asymmetric unit contains one cation and one anion. Comment Coordination polymers of one, two and three-dimensional infinite frameworks involving cadmium(II) have been of great interest in recent years owing to their potential applications in various fields such as non-linear optical (NLO) materials (Zhang et al., 1999; Chen et al., 2002; Liu et al., 2004). As the d 10 configuration and softness of cadmium(II) permit a wide variety of geometries and coordination numbers, especially with the ambidentade thiocyanate (SCN  ) ligand, various structural types have been observed. Which structural type occurs depends on the size, shape and symmetry of the counter-cations and also on the ratio of Cd 2+ to SCN  ions. In a continuation of our interest in the supramolecular chemistry of salts of simple metal complexes (Sharma et al., 2005, 2006), the synthesis and characterization of the title compound, (I), were undertaken. The asymmetric unit contains one benzyltriethylammonium cation, three thio- cyanate anions and a cadmium cation. Each Cd 2+ ion is 3N,3S- hexacoordinated by thiocyanate ligands in an octahedral arrangement. Thus, each S atom is trans to an N atom (Fig. 1 and Table 1). Three examples of Cd 2+ –thiocyanate chains with the same stoichiometry and morphology (Kuniyasu et al., 1987; Chen et al., 1994, 2002) were found in the Cambridge Struc- tural Database (CSD, Version 5.27; Allen, 2002). Both Cd—S and Cd—N bonds lengths are in agreement with those found in analogous structures: the average observed Cd—S bond length [2.752 (9) A ˚ ] is significantly shorter than the sum of the Shannon ionic radius (Shannon, 1976) of Cd 2+ and the Pauling ionic radius (Pauling, 1960) of S  (3.28 A ˚ ), indicating a significant covalent contribution. The Cd—N bond lengths [2.340 (2) A ˚ ] are also shorter than the sum of Shannon’s ionic