Exploratory Synthesis and Characterization of High Nuclearity Cluster-Based Compounds

In light of the already proven applications of transition-metal (TM) oxide clusters, including catalysis, selective sorption, sepns., mol. recognition, environmental decontamination, and nanotechnol., one can imagine that the development of framework materials utilizing these discrete clusters as building blocks could have insurmountable promise in many applications. Recently two new hybrid materials were synthesized using traditional high-temp., solid-state methods. These compds. are salt-inclusion solids (SISs), exhibiting an integrated framework of covalent metal oxide clusters embedded in ionic alkali metal chloride lattices. These new SISs contain discrete polyoxometalate (POM) cores with the compns. [V15O36Cl]9-, V15, and [V14As8O42Cl]5-, V14. The salt serves as a structural insulator, terminating the propagation of the metal oxide lattice creating water-sol. solids. Currently, scientists are pursuing the rational design of new extended solids contg. discrete POM cores, and the soly. of the SISs presented here could contribute to this research. The primary objective of this project was to create new extended solids contg. polyoxovanadate clusters via exploratory synthesis. The as-prepd. water sol. POM contg. solids were mixed with a variety of other water sol. reactants. Upon dissoln. of the reactants, single crystals were obtained through a repptn. process. In this presentation the results of exploratory synthesis will be presented.