Zi-Jing Xiao

A hybrid carboxylate-water decamer with a discrete octameric water moiety self-assembled in a 2D copper(II) coordination polymer

An octameric water moiety which consists of a chairlike water hexamer and two pendent water molecules in the 1,4-diaxial positions and shows a similar structure to the hydrocarbon (1r,4r)-1,4-dimethylcyclohexane, is unambiguously trapped in a 2D Cu(II) mixed-ligand coordination polymer, {[Cu2(bpp)2(H2O)2(bpda)2]·6H2O}n (1) (bpp = 1,3-bis(4-pyridyl)propane and H2bpda = 2,2′-biphenyldicarboxylic acid). The water octamer can be extended into a hybrid carboxylate-water decamer when carboxylic oxygen atoms from bpda2− are involved. Interestingly, the present hybrid decamer bears a similar structural topology to a butterfly (H2O)10 cluster. The reversible dehydration/hydration of 1 is determined by X-ray powder diffraction studies.

A self-assembled (H 2 O) 20 (CH 3 OH) 4 binary cluster containing a grail-shaped hexadecameric water cluster trapped in the cavity of a metal-ligand hybrid

A discrete centrosymmetric (H2O)20(CH3OH)4 binary cluster was confined in the cavity of a metal-ligand hybrid [Ag4(bpda)2(bpp)4·14H2O·2CH3OH]n (1) (where bpp = 1,3-bis(4-pyridyl)propane and H2bpda = 2,2′-biphenyldicarboxylic acid). The novel mixed water-methanol cluster consists of one grail-shaped hexadecameric cluster, four dangling water and four hanging methanol molecules. The (H2O)16 cluster is composed of two pairs of edge-sharing (H2O)5 rings attached to one (H2O)4 core with twenty hydrogen bonds. Alternatively, the (H2O)16 cluster is structurally similar to a complicated hydrocarbon generated by undergoing [2+2] cycloaddition of 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexahydropentalene, which reveals the resemblance between water clusters and organic compounds.

Synthesis, structure and bonding of the hypoelectronic cluster compound Sr 3 Tl 5

The Sr3Tl5 phase was prepared by high temperature synthesis techniques through reaction of the high purity elements in the welded Nb tubes. The structure established through X-ray structural analysis shows the compound is a good hypoelectronic trielide example of the Pu3Pd5 structural type in which skeletal electron count is lower than in a traditional Zintl phase (Cmcm, Z = 4; a = 10.604(2) Å, b = 8.675(2) Å, and c = 10.985(2) Å; V = 1010.5(3) Å3). The strontium size and the compounds polarity appear responsible for this thallium phase crystallization in the Pu3Pd5 family type rather than the isoelectronic Sr3In5 version. A first-principle electronic structure calculation (LMTO) demonstrates that the strontium atoms participate substantially in Sr-Tl bonding in the structure.