Structural characterization and Hirshfeld surface analysis of a Co(II) complex with imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine

A new mononuclear tetra­hedral Co(II) complex, di­chlorido­bis­(imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-κN (1))cobalt(II), [CoCl(2)(C(7)H(6)N(2))(2)], has been synthesized using a bioactive imidazo­pyridine ligand. X-ray crystallography reveals that the solid-state structure of the title complex exhibits both C—H⋯Cl and π–π stacking inter­actions in building supra­molecular assemblies. Indeed, the mol­ecules are linked by C—H⋯Cl inter­actions into a two-dimensional framework, with finite zero-dimensional dimeric units as building blocks, whereas π–π stacking plays a crucial role in building a supra­molecular layered network. An exhaustive investigation of the diverse inter­molecular inter­actions via Hirshfeld surface analysis enables contributions to the crystal packing of the title complex to be qu­anti­fied. The fingerprint plots associated with the Hirshfeld surface clearly display each significant inter­action involved in the structure, by qu­anti­fying them in an effective visual manner.