Four similar Mn(II)
metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), {[Mn2(nbtc)(H2O)2(S)]·S·0.5H2O}
n
[S = DMF (1),
DMA (2), NMP (3), DEF (4)]
(DMF = N,N′-dimethylformamide,
DMA = N,N′-dimethylacetamide,
NMP = N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone, DEF = N,N′-diethylformamide), have been assembled
solvothermally from the nitro and carboxyl doubly functionalized ligand
6,6′-dinitro-2,2′,4,4′-biphenyl tetracarboxylic
acid (H4nbtc) and characterized by single-crystal X-ray
diffraction, elemental analyses, infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric
analyses, and powder X-ray diffraction. All MOFs exhibit unique three-dimensional
double-walled open-frameworks with one-dimensional parallelogram channels
and have guest/coordinated water and carbonyl solvent molecules, reasonably
providing a good example of the competitive behavior of water and
carbonyl solvent molecules and an excellent candidate for studying
the single crystal coordinated solvent exchange transformations. Interestingly,
because of the different steric hindrance of the series of coordinated
carbonyl solvent molecules, the MOFs’ structural differences
primarily display on the coordination mode of O1W and coordination
sphere of Mn1/Mn2 between MOFs 1(4) and 2(3). And it is also found that a small variation
of the lattice parameters, unit cell volume, and density occurs. Furthermore,
MOFs 1–3 show solvent-induced single-crystal-to-single-crystal
(SCSC) transformations, which only exchange coordinated and guest
carbonyl solvent molecules (DMF, DMA, NMP). And fortunately, the available
single crystal data of 2′ and 2″ have been collected, which were obtained by soaking 1 and 3 in DMA solution for 5 days and 7 days respectively,
and they have the same molecular formula as 2 but slightly
different structures from 2. In such transformations,
the complete solvent exchanging time discrimination of 2 to 3 (10 days), 3 to 2 (7
days), 3 to 1 (5 days), 1 to 2 (5 days), and 2 to 1 (3 days)
is susceptible to the size of carbonyl solvent molecules (NMP >
DMA
> DMF), and the metal coordination sphere of SCSC regenerated samples
is influenced not only by the character of coordinated carbonyl solvents
but also the nature of mother crystals. In addition, MOFs 1–4 exhibit antiferromagnetic coupling, confirmed
through magnetic susceptibility measurements.