Abstract
An octanuclear compound of cerium(III), [Ce
(Pydc)
(HPydc)
.22H
O].11H
O (
) (Pydc=pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylate anion) was prepared under mild solvothermal conditions and its crystal structure was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Three kinds of coordination environments are observed, which include: [Ce(Pydc)
], [Ce(Pydc)(H
O)
)], and [Ce(H
O)
)]. Each cerium atom in
is nine-coordinated but two different geometries are found. The Ce1 and Ce2 atoms exhibit a nearly tricapped trigonal prismatic CeN
geometry, while Ce3 and Ce4 possess CeNO
and CeO
coordination polyhedra, which approximate to slightly distorted mono-capped square antiprisms having 12 triangular faces. The Pydc ligands adopt tri-, tetra-, and penta-coordination modes through tridentate chelating and,
and
-bridging modes, respectively. The clusters are joined by O–H···O hydrogen bonds to generate 3D supramolecular network. Magnetic susceptibility measurements for
indicate that the
values obey the Curie-Weiss law. The overall magnetic behavior is typical for the presence of antiferromagnetic exchange coupling interactions between the cerium(III) ions.