Coordination polymers of various architectures built with mixed imidazole/benzimidazole and carboxylate donor ligands and different metal ions: syntheses, structural features and magnetic propertiesThis article is part of a themed issue on Coordination polymers: structure and function.Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Additional figures and selected bond distances and bond angles. CCDC reference numbers 773576–773585. For ESI and crystallographic data in CIF or other electronic format see DOI: 10.1039/c0nj00302f

Ten coordination polymers {[Cd(L1)2]}n(1), {[Cu(L1)2]}n(2), {[Cd2(L1)2(HCOO)2(H2O)]}n(3), {[Cd2(L1)4]·3H2O}n(4), {[Cd(L1)(CH3COO)]}n(5), {[Cd(L1)2(C5H5N)]·2.5H2O}n(6), {[Zn(L2)2]}n(7), {[Cd2(L2)4]·H2O}n(8), {[Cd3(L2)6(H2O)]·2EtOH·H2O}n(9) and {[Cd(L3)2]·2DMF·4H2O}n(10), where HL1= 4-imidazole-1-yl-benzoic acid, HL2= 3-imidazole-1-yl-benzoic acid and HL3= 4-benzmidazole-1-yl-benzoic acid, have been synthesized under different experimental conditions. Their structures are determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses and further characterized by IR spectra, thermogravimetric (TG) and elemental analyses. The structure of 1is a 2D → 2D (2D = two dimensional) interpenetrating network with (4,4) grid topology while 2has an interesting Kagome structure. Compounds 4and 6crystallize in 4- and 3-fold interpenetrating diamondoid frameworks respectively. Compound 7is a layered non-interpenetrating (4,4) grid network whereas 8has an unprecedented self-penetrating structure with 2D framework. Compound 9is a self-penetrating 3D structure while 10crystallizes in a non-interpenetrating (4,4) square-grid with one-dimensional (1D) channels. From these results, it is demonstrated that the structures of the coordination polymers are strongly dependent on the geometry of L1, L2and reaction conditions. Variable temperature magnetic susceptibility study of 2has also been performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]