New Copper Coordination Polymers Derived from <i>p</i>- and <i>o</i>-BIMB via Different Reaction Approaches: Toward the Effects of Isomeric Ligands (BIMB = Bis-(imidazol-1-ylmethyl)benzene)

Abstract

To have an insight into the performance of chemically homogeneous but geometrically different isomeric ligands in constructing coordination polymers, two xylene-functionalized N-donors, specifically, p -BIMB and o -BIMB (BIMB = bis-(imidazol-1-ylmethyl)benzene), were treated, in parallel, with CuCN and KI under solvothermal conditions and with CuCl 2 and NaN 3 in layer diffusion, thereby affording four new coordination polymers with dimensions from 1D to 3D. In particular, the cuprous [Cu 2 (CN) 2 ( p -BIMB)] n ( 1 ) is structured as a 3D framework showing an unprecedented bimodal (8 × 10 2 )(8 5 .10) 2 topology and [Cu 2 (CN) 2 ( o -BIMB)] n ( 2 ) as an undulated sheet based on a (CuCN) n network and the cupric {[Cu(N 3 ) 2 ( p -BIMB) 2 ](H 2 O) 2 } n ( 3 ) is assembled as a 3D polycatenated framework based on the inclined interpenetrating (4,4) nets and [Cu(N 3 ) 2 ( o -BIMB) 2 ] n ( 4 ) as a metal-fused ring catenation. The assemblies of 1 − 4 are of note for revealing a law that the polymers, comparably derived from two isomeric ligands, are similar in metal coordination but structurally are different. In addition, the responses of 1 and 2 to heat and light reveal that the properties of comparably synthesized compounds are affected by the structural diversity brought by ligand isomerization.