4,4′-[Ethylenebis(nitrilomethylidyne)]dibenzonitrile

The mol­ecule of the title Schiff base compound, C(18)H(14)N(4), lies across a crystallographic inversion centre and adopts an E configuration with respect to the azomethine (C=N) bonds. The imino groups are coplanar with the aromatic rings with a maximum deviation of 0.1574 (12) Å for the N atom. Within the mol­ecule, the planar units are parallel, but extend in opposite directions from the dimethyl­ene bridge. In the crystal structure, pairs of inter­molecular C—H⋯N hydrogen bonds link neighbouring mol­ecules into centrosymmetric dimers with R (2) (2)(10) ring motifs. An inter­esting feature of the crystal structure is the short inter­molecular C⋯C inter­action with a distance of 3.3821 (13) Å, which is shorter than the sum of the van der Waals radius of a carbon atom.