Crystal structures of two formamidinium hexafluoridophosphate salts, one with batch-dependent disorder

Syntheses of the acyclic amidinium salts, morpholinoformamidinium hexafluoridophosphate [OC₄H₈N - CH=NH₂]PF₆ or C₅H₁₁N₂O⁺·PF₆^-, 1, and pyrrolidinoformamidinium hexafluoridophosphate [C4H8N - CH= NH₂]PF₆ or C₅H₁₁N₂⁺·PF₆^-, 2, were carried out by heating either morpholine or pyrrolidine with triethyl orthoformate and ammonium hexafluoridophosphate. Crystals of 1 obtained directly from the reaction mixture contain one cation and one anion in the asymmetric unit. The structure involves cations linked in chains parallel to the b axis by N - H⋯O hydrogen bonds in space group Pbca, with glide-related chains pointing in opposite directions. Crystals of 1 obtained by recrystallization from ethanol, however, showed a similar unit cell and the same basic structure, but unexpectedly, there was positional disorder [occupancy ratio 0.639 (4):0.361 (4)] in one of the cation chains, which lowered the crystal symmetry to the non-centrosymmetric space group Pca2₁, with two cations and anions in the asymmetric unit. In the pyrrolidino compound, 2, cations and anions are ordered and are stacked separately, with zigzag N - H⋯F hydrogen-bonding between stacks, forming ribbons parallel to (101), extended along the b-axis direction. Slight differences in the delocalized C=N distances between the two cations may reflect the inductive effect of the oxygen atom in the morpholino compound.