Arrays of chiral nanotubes and a layered coordination polymer containing gallium-sulfide supertetrahedral clusters

Vaqueiro, P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7545-6262, Romero, L., Rowan, B. and Richards, B. (2010) Arrays of chiral nanotubes and a layered coordination polymer containing gallium-sulfide supertetrahedral clusters. Chemistry- A European Journal, 16 (15). pp. 4462-4465. ISSN 0947-6539 doi: 10.1002/chem.200903425

Abstract/Summary

We report here a unique chiral hybrid gallium sulfide, [NC2H8]2[Ga10S16(N2C12H12)(NC2H7)2] 1, consisting of helical chains of organically-functionalised supertetrahedral clusters which form quadruple-stranded helical nanotubes of ca. 3 nm diameter. This material therefore consists of discrete metal-organic nanotubes which, to the best of our knowledge, are extremely rare. Whilst solvothermal reactions involving 1,2-di(4-pyridyl)ethylene (DPE) resulted in the formation of such single-walled chiral nanotubes, the use of longer 4,4’-trimethylenedipyridine (TMP) ligands resulted in the synthesis of a two-dimensional hybrid gallium sulfide, [C5H6N]3[Ga10S16(OH)(N2C13H14)] 2 in which, for the first time, inorganic and organic linkages between supertetrahedral clusters coexist.