Syntheses, structures, photoluminescence, and magnetic properties of (3,6)- and 4-connected lanthanide metal-organic frameworks with a semirigid tricarboxylate ligand

Lanthanide coordination polymers [LnL(DMF)(2)]·0.25H(2)O [Ln = La (1), Ce (2), Pr (3), Nd (4), Sm (5), Eu (6), Gd (7), Tb (8), Dy (9), Ho (10), Er (11), and Tm (12)], and [GdL(H(2)O)(3)] (7') (H(3)L = 5-(4-carboxy-2-nitrophenoxy)-isophthalic acid), have been synthesized under hydro- and solvothermal conditions, respectively. Compounds 1-12 exhibit the same three-dimensional (3D) architecture, which is built up from binuclear paddle-wheel building blocks, and their resulting frameworks can be rationalized as rarely reported flu-3,6-C2/c topology. Compound 7' crystallizes in the monoclinic system, space group P2(1)/c. The ligands (L) bridge the Gd(III) centers to form 3D frameworks featuring a zeolite BCT topology, which have been unreported based on rare earth metals until now. Moreover, compound 6 exhibits characteristic red luminescent properties of Eu(III) complexes. The magnetic susceptibilities, over a temperature range of 2.0-300 K, of 7 and 7' have also been investigated.