Fine-tuning of lanthanide-monocarboxylate coordination networks through ligand decoration.

We report herein five new coordination polymers of general formula [LnNa(C(6)H(5)CO(2))(4)] where Ln = Y (6), Tb (7), Er (8), [DyNa(CH(3)CO(2))(4)(MeOH)] (9) and [DyNa(C(3)H(7)CO(2))(4)] (10). Single crystal structure analyses revealed that all compounds have a repeating unit containing one Ln(3+), one Na(+) and four monocarboxylate ligands (RCO(2)(-)) (R = -CH(3), -C(3)H(7), -C(6)H(5)). Compounds 6-8 and 10 possess helical polymeric structures which are extended in three dimensions forming chiral srs networks whilst compound 9 constitutes a two dimensional honeycomb network, illustrating that variation in the alkyl group of the monocarboxylate can result in versatile and variable polymeric networks. The magnetic properties of the reported compounds have also been studied.