Syntheses, crystal structures, and gas storage studies in new three-dimensional 5-aminoisophthalate praseodymium...

The hydrothermal reaction of 5-aminoisophthalic acid and praseodymium oxide in different acids results in two new praseodymium coordination polymers, {Pr(2)(aip)(3)(H(2)O)(2) x 3 H(2)O}(n) (1) and {Pr(2)(Haip)(2)(aip)(NO(3))(2) x 8 H(2)O}(n) (2) (aip = 5-aminoisophthalate). Complexes 1 and 2 are two distinct three-dimensional metal-organic frameworks constructed from the linkage of rod-shaped praseodymium carboxylate secondary building units and phenyl rings. Both dehydrated coordination frameworks are estimated using a computational method based on Connolly's algorithm, indicating that dehydrated compound 1 cannot host molecules other than water molecules or He, whereas dehydrated compound 2 is able to host molecules with kinetic radii as big as 2.3 A. The potential specific accessible surface of this compound is 792 m(2) g(-1). Meanwhile, N(2) sorption measurements reveal that dehydrated compound 2 having a high 230 cm(3)/g (287 mg/g) N(2) storage capacity at 77 K and 1 atm is in fairly good agreement with our calculation results. Moreover, powder X-ray diffraction measurement results demonstrated that the stable channels of dehydrated compound 2 can reversibly host other small solvent molecules (e.g., water, methanol, and ethanol) and grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation is applied to predict its hydrogen storage capacity.