Metal-organic crystals, glasses, liquids
Two researchers of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry and Technology (D-09) participated in an interesting study of novel metal-organic materials. Their co-workers prepared several crystalline zinc-imidazolate materials with differently modified organic ligands, and studied how changes in electronic structure and steric properties of these ligands affect the melting temperatures of crystals and the ability of forming glasses from these crystals.
With NMR measurements Andraž Krajnc and Gregor Mali studied differences in local structure and chemical bonds between crystalline and glassy materials. They showed that during melting some chemical bonds between zinc atoms and imidazolate ligands break and new bonds between metal centres and halogen atoms form.
The results of this study are important because they improve our understanding of the formation of metal-organic glasses and increase the variety of these glasses. Glassy materials, consisting of metal centers and organic ligands, are the fourth (and the newest) type of glass beside oxide, metallic and organic glasses.
The work was described in an article published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.9b11639?ref=pdf
For further information plese contact: gregor.mali[at]ki.si