Inorganic-organic hybrid materials are of great interest in solid state chemistry due to their enormous variety of intriguing structural topologies and their fascinating properties as well as great potential applications in many fields, such as catalysis, medicine, sorption, electron conductivity, magnetism and photochemistry. 1 As a contribution to the elaboration of the organic-inorganic hybrid compound family, we present in this paper the synthesis and structural characterization of a new organic-inorganic hybrid cyclotetraphosphate, which results from an interaction between cyclotetraphosphoric acid and 2,3dimethylaniline.The crystal structure of the [C8H12N]4P4O12·2H2O(I) was prepared at room temperature by the slow evaporation of a mixture of an aqueous solution of cyclotetraphosphoric acid and an ethanolic solution of 2,3-dimethylaniline. The first solution was cooled at 273 K, and the second one was added drop-wise under agitation. Cycloteraphosphoric acid was prepared by passing a solution of Na4P4O12·4H2O, prepared according to the Ondik process, 2 through an ion-exchange resin in its H-state (Amberlite IR120).The obtained solution was slowly evaporated until the formation of stable crystals with suitable dimensions.The crystal structure of [C8H12N]4P4O12·2H2O was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The crystal data, details of the data collection and structure determination results are given in Table 1.All non-hydrogen atoms were refined anisotropically.The hydrogen atoms were located by difference-Fourier maps, and not refined isotropically. The final atomic coordinates of the non-hydrogen atoms of [C8H12N]4P4O12·2H2O and their Beq are reported in Table 2. An ORTEP drawing of phosphoric ring P4O12 and the other crystallographical independent species in the molecular structure is shown in Fig. 1.The P4O12 ring is located around the inversion center (3/4, 3/4, 1/2), and is thus built up by only two independent PO4 tetrahedra. In this centrosymmetrical entity, the P-P-P angles (83.98(4)˚ and 96.02(4)˚ and the P-P distances (2.934(3)Å and 2.967(1)Å) indicate that the square formed by the four phosphorus atoms is less distorted than that in other cyclotetraphosphates. 3 Nevertheless, this distortion is commonly observed in P4O12 having Ci symmetry. The local X201 ANALYTICAL SCIENCES 2006, VOL. 22
X-ray Structure Analysis OnlineThe title compound, [C8H12N]4P4O12·2H2O, crystallizes in the monoclinic space group C2/c with unit-cell parameters: a = 34.958(2), b = 8.135(8), c = 15.075(4)Å, β = 107.70(3)˚, V = 4084.3(3)Å 3 , Z = 4 and Dx = 1.367 g cm -3 . The atomic arrangement can be described by inorganic layers containing P4O12 rings and water molecules, parallel to the bc plane and between which are located 2,3-dimethylphenylammonium cations. The grouping is maintained by different types of interactions (electrostatic, H-bonds and van der Waals).