Hydrothermal combination of trilacunary Dawson phosphotungstates and hexanickel clusters: from an isolated cluster to a 3D framework.

Three novel hexa-Ni-substituted Dawson phosphortungstates [Ni6 (en)3 (H2O)6 (μ3-OH)3 (H3 P2 W15 O56 )]⋅14 H2O (1), [Ni(enMe)2 (H2O)][Ni6 (enMe)3 (μ3-OH)3 (H2O)6 (HP2 W15 O56)]⋅ 10 H2O (2), and [Ni(enMe)2 ]3 [Ni(enMe)2 (H2O)][Ni(enMe)(H2O)2][Ni6 (enMe)3 (μ3-OH)3 (Ac)2 (H2O)(P2 W15 O56)]2 ⋅6 H2O (3) (en=ethylenediamine, enMe=1, 2-diaminopropane, Ac=CH3 COO(-)) have been made under hydrothermal conditions and were characterized by IR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, powder X-ray diffraction, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The common structural features of compounds 1-3 contain the similar hexa-Ni-substituted Dawson polyoxometalate (POM) units that can be viewed as a Ni6 (μ3-OH)3 cluster capping on a P2 W15 O56 fragment. Compounds 1 and 2 are two isolated clusters, whereas compound 3 is the first 3D POM framework constructed from hexa-Ni-substituted Dawson POM units and Ni(enMe) complex bridges. The preparations of compounds 1-3 not only indicate that triangle coplanar Ni6 clusters are very stable fragments in both trivacant Keggin and trivacant Dawson POM systems, but also offer that the hydrothermal technique can act as an effective strategy for making novel Dawson-type high-nuclear transition-metal cluster substituted POMs by combination of lacunary Dawson precusors with transition-metal cations in the tunable role of organic ligands. In addition, magnetic measurements illustrate that there exist overall ferromagnetic interactions in compound 3.