Crystal structure and Hirshfeld surface analysis of dimethyl 3,3'-{[(1 E ,2 E )-ethane-1,2-diyl-idene]bis(aza-nylyl-idene)}bis-(4-methyl-benzoate).

The title Schiff base compound, C 20 H 20 N 2 O 4 , synthesized by the condensation reaction of methyl 3-amino-4-methyl-benzoat and glyoxal in ethanol, crystallizes in the the monoclinic space group P 2 1 / n . The mol-ecule is Z-shaped with the C-N-C-C torsion angle being 47.58 (18)°. In the crystal, pairs of mol-ecules are linked via C-H⋯N hydrogen bonds, forming centrosymetric dimers with an R 2 2 (8) ring motif; this connectivity leads to the formation of columns running along the a- axis direction. Hirshfeld surface analysis and two-dimensional fingerprint plots were used to explore the inter-molecular inter-actions and revealed that the most significant contributions to the crystal packing are from H⋯H (49.4%), H⋯O/O⋯H (19.0%) and H⋯C/C⋯H (17.5%) contacts. Energy frameworks were constructed through different inter-molecular inter-action energies to investigate the stability of the compound. The net inter-action energies for the title compound were found to be electrostatic ( E ele = -48.4 kJ mol -1 ), polarization ( E pol = -9.7 kJ mol -1 ), dispersion ( E dis = -186.9 kJ mol -1 ) and repulsion ( E rep = 94.9 kJ mol -1 ) with a total inter-action energy, E tot , of -162.4 kJ mol -1 .