Coordination Polymers, MOFs and Other Terminology

There exist a vast number of discrete, polymetallic coordination clusters both of the metal-metal bonded type and linked by a tremendous variety of bridging ligands, notably carboxylates. Such compounds are not coordination polymers but oligomers and hence can be more soluble, more well-defined and easier to characterise than coordination polymers, for which they can serve as useful model systems. We will discuss discrete, self-assembled complexes of semi-protected metal ions that act as hosts in solution or as 3D capsules in the next chapter and we will not cover these systems in detail here except to note in passing a couple of examples that are of particular interest. One particularly prominent cluster is Muij-acetate, the mixed-valence compound 

20i2(CH3C02)i6(H20)4] studicd intensively since the early 1990s. This discrete cluster is 

Structured water to the ingress of metal ions suggests insights into the way in which a biological cell converts an incoming chemical signal into a response. 

9 Moulton, B. and Zaworotko, M. J., From molecules to crystal engineering Supramolecular isomerism and polymorphism in network solids , Chem. Rev. 2001, 101, 1629-1658. 

As we progress from OD to networks the compounds become insoluble, but all are potentially capable of including guests depending on the lengths of the spacers, size of the nodes and degree of interpenetration. 

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Coordination Polymers 9.5.1 Coordination Polymers, MOFs and Other Terminology... 

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