Synthesis, characterization and versatile applications of metal-organic clusters, extended frameworks and related composites

Abstract

The pioneering work by Alfred Werner in 1893 described the structure of octahedral transition metal complexes and the coordination number of metal ions. This work was the origin of modern coordination chemistry and thereafter there has been a tremendous development in this field. The extensive study over the years has now made it possible for the chemist to adopt rational synthetic methodologies to obtain desired coordination compounds with novel properties. On the most basic level, the coordination compounds can be described as compounds containing metal nodes linked by inorganic/organic ligands through metal-ligand coordination bond. Depending on their dimensionality, such compounds can be broadly classified into two classes, discrete coordination complexes and coordination polymers (CPs).1 The former include zero-dimensional (0D) polynuclear complexes (Figure 1) which are formed driven by the spontaneous self-assembly of selected metal ions with suitable ligands containing multiple binding sites. Among the zero-dimensional (0D) discrete complexes, synthesis and study of magnetic polynuclear coordination clusters are highly motivated due to the structural novelty as well as the potential applications in the field of molecular magnetism.3