Achiral diamondoid or chiral quartz net: the effect of substituents in the topology and catenation of coordination polymers based on tetrahedral Cd(COO)4 building units

Abstract

The solvothermal reaction of Cd(NO3)2 with substituted phenyl-dicarboxylic acids afford four coordination polymers formulated as [Me2NH2]2[Cd(2-R-BDC)]·xDMF (2-R-BDCH2, R = −H, −NH2, −Br, −NO2), which feature interpenetrated dia or qtz nets based on Cd(COO)4 tetrahedral secondary building units. The size of the substituent group plays a key role in the formation of the chirality and catenation of nets: the small ones lead to three-fold interpenetrated achiral dia nets while the larger ones furnish two-fold interpenetrated chiral qtz nets.