Three coordination polymers based on different carboxylates, metals and a tri(4-imidazolylphenyl)amine ligand

In this paper, three new coordination complexes based on a flexible tri(4-imidazolylphenyl)amine (Tipa) ligand, namely [Co(Tipa)(L1)2]·H2O (1), [Zn2(Tipa)(L1)4(H2O)]·2H2O (2) and [Mn(Tipa)(L2)]·2H2O (3), where HL1 = benzoic acid H2L2 = 5-OH-1,3-benzenedicarboxylic acid and Tipa = tri(4-imidazolylphenyl)amine, have been synthesized under the hydrothermal condition and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, elemental analysis and IR spectra. Compound 1 exhibits a 1D ladder chain with the benzoic anions hanging on the two sides of the chain. For compound 2, it shows a fascinating 1D zigzag chain. Compound 3 displays (3,5)-connected (42·6)(42·67·8) topology, where the identical 2D networks entangle in highly rare parallel fashions to give a fascinating 2D → 3D framework with polycatenation and polyrotaxane characters. Moreover, the photoluminescent properties for the compounds 2 and 3 were also investigated.