ABSTRACT: The title compound, C(12)H(15)F(2)N(2)O(+)·C(6)H(2)N(3)O(7) (-), a picrate salt of 4-[(E)-(2,4-difluoro-phen-yl)(hydroxy-imino)meth-yl]piper-idine, crystallizes with two independent mol-ecules in a cation-anion pair in the asymmetric unit. In the cation, a methyl group is tris-ubstituted by hydroxy-imino, piperidin-4-yl and 2,4-difluoro-phenyl groups, the latter of which contains an F atom disordered over two positions in the ring [occupancy ratio 0.631?(4):0.369?(4)]. The mean plane of the hydr-oxy group is in a synclinical conformation nearly orthogonal [N-C-C-C = 72.44?(19)°] to the mean plane of the piperidine ring, which adopts a slightly distorted chair conformation. The dihedral angle between the mean plane of the 2,4-difluoro-phenyl and piperidin-4-yl groups is 60.2?(3)°. In the picrate anion, the mean planes of the two o-NO(2) and single p-NO(2) groups adopt twist angles of 5.7?(2), 25.3?(7) and 8.3?(6)°, respectively, with the attached planar benzene ring. The dihedral angle between the mean planes of the benzene ring in the picrate anion and those in the hydroxy-imino, piperidin-4-yl and 2,4-difluoro-phenyl groups in the cation are 84.9?(7), 78.9?(4) and 65.1?(1)°, respectively. Extensive hydrogen-bond inter-actions occur between the cation-anion pair, which help to establish the crystal packing in the unit cell. This includes dual three-center hydrogen bonds with the piperidin-4-yl group, the phenolate and o-NO(2) O atoms of the picrate anion at different positions in the unit cell, which form separate N-H?(O,O) bifurcated inter-molecular hydrogen-bond inter-actions. Also, the hydr-oxy group forms a separate hydrogen bond with a nearby piperidin-4-yl N atom, thus providing two groups of hydrogen bonds, which form an infinite two-dimensional network along (011).
