Achiral diamondoid or chiral quartz net: the effect of substituents in the topology and catenation of coordination polymers based on tetrahedral Cd(COO)4 building units

The solvothermal reaction of Cd(NO3)(2) with substituted phenyl-dicarboxylic acids afford four coordination polymers formulated as [Me2NH2](2)[Cd(2-R-BDC)].xDMF (2-R-BDCH2, R = -H, -NH2, -Br, -NO2), which feature interpenetrated dia or qtz nets based on Cd(COO)(4) tetrahedral secondary building units. The size of the substituent group plays a key role in the formation of the chirality and catenation of nets: the small ones lead to three-fold interpenetrated achiral dia nets while the larger ones furnish two-fold interpenetrated chiral qtz nets.