Continuous Wave and Pulsed Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy of Paramagnetic Framework Cupric Ions in the Zn(II) Doped Porous Coordination Polymer Cu3-xZnx(btc)2

In the parent metal-organic framework Cu-3(btc)(2) material the Cu(II) pairs in the paddle wheel building blocks of the framework give rise to an antiferromagnetic spin state with an electron spin resonance (ESR) silent S = 0 ground state. The thermally excited S = I state of the CLOD pairs can be observed for temperatures above 80 K by ESR spectroscopy but give rise to an exchanged narrowed resonance line preventing the exploration of any structural details in the environment of the paddle wheel units. However, magnetically diluted paramagnetic binuclear Cu-Zn clusters can be formed by substitution of Cu(II) ions by Zn(II) at low doping levels, as already known for zinc-doped copper acetate monohydrate. Indeed, ESR, hyperfine sublevel correlation spectroscopy (HYSCORE) and pulsed electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) verify the successful incorporation of zinc ions at cupric ion sites into the framework of the resulting Cu3-xZnx(btc)(2) coordination polymer. The formation of such paramagnetic binuclear Cu-Zn paddle wheel building blocks allows the investigation of the interaction between the Cu(II) ions and various adsorbates by advanced pulsed ESR methods with high accuracy. As a first example we present the adsorption of methanol over Cu3-xZnx(btc)(2), which was found to coordinate directly to the Cu(II) ions via their open axial binding site.