LAUSR

Abstract The chalcogen bonding (ChB) in a series of thiourea, selenourea and their derivatives has been investigated in the present paper. Thus, selenourea and dimethylselenourea undergo dimerization and trimerization processes in the presence of various halogen species (1–5). Selenourea and dimethylselenourea form trimers 3–4 in the presence of lighter halogens (chlorine and bromine) through Se⋯Se chalcogen bonding. When moving to heavier halogen (iodine), the dimers 1–2 are formed. Thiourea and its derivatives also tend to make very strong S⋯S bonds and form dimers in the case of lighter halogens chlorine and bromine (compounds 6–7). However, the monomers separated by the iodine species are formed upon interaction with iodine via very strong S⋯I bonding (compounds 9–12). Furthermore, among all the crystal structures of 1–12, only iodine cations I+ in 10 and 12 act as electron density acceptors, while in the remaining compounds 1–9 and 11 halogen species act as electron density donors.