Construct Polyoxometalate Frameworks through Covalent Bonds

An emerging strategy for exploring the application of polyoxometalates (POMs) is to assemble POM clusters into open-framework materials, especially inorganic organic hybrid three-dimensional (3D) open-framework materials, via the introduction of different organic linkers between the POM clusters. This strategy has yielded a few 3D crystalline POMs of which a typical class is the group of polyoxometalate metal organic frameworks (POMMOFs). However, for reported POMMOFs, only coordination bonds are involved between the linkers and POM clusters, and it has not yet produced any covalently bonded polyoxometalate frameworks. Here, the concept of "covalently bonded POMs (CPOMs)" is developed. By using vanadoborates as an example, we showed that the 3D CPOMs can be obtained by a condensation reaction through the oxolation mechanism of polymer chemistry. In particular, suitable single crystals were harvested and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. This work forges a link among polymer science, POM chemistry, and open-framework materials by demonstrating that it is possible to use covalent bonds according to polymer chemistry principles to construct crystalline 3D open-framework POM materials.