“…N-heterocyclic carboxylic acids have been used widely in the preparation of coordination polymers as they contain O donors as well as N donors and can coordinate to metal ions with various coordination modes, which can lead to polymers with intriguing structures and interesting properties. [1][2][3] Until now, many polymers constructed from these kinds of ligands have been reported, including zero-, one-, two-and three-dimensional products, [4][5][6][7] but it is often difficult to predict the exact structures and compositions of the final products owing to the influence of many factors, such as the structural characterisation of the organic ligand, the coordination nature of the metal ion, the counter anion, the pH value, the solvent and the temperature. For example, solvothermal reaction of 2-(hydroxymethyl)-1H-imidazole-4,5-dicarboxylic acid (H 4 hmIDC) with BaCl 2 can give the coordination polymer [Ba 3 (µ 5 -H 2 hmIDC) (µ 5 -H 3 hmIDC)(µ 4 -NO 3 ) 2 (µ 3 -Cl)] n in DMF-CH 3 CN-HNO 3 solution, 8 or [Ba(µ 3 -H 3 hmIDC) 2 (µ 1 -H 2 O)] n in ethanol-water solution 9 or [Ba(µ 3 -H 3 hmIDC)(µ 4 -H 3 hmIDC)] n in ethanol-DMF solution.…”