Largest 3d-4f 196-nuclear Gd158Co38 clusters with excellent magnetic cooling

It is a meaningful and challenging work for structural and synthetic chemists to isolate nano-sized high-nuclearity cluster-molecules. In this work, two largest hetero-metallic nano-clusters Gd158Co38 were obtained via the "multi-anions-template" method. Different from the reported giant hollow-nano-clusters, the Ln(158) core in Gd158Co38 (the protein-sized nano-clusters, ca. 4.3 nm x 3.6 nm x 3.5 nm) has the highest Ln nuclear number, which is integrated by twelve halide ions (with the form of icosahedron) as key templates, while Co ions (as 3d metals) are located in its periphery. This emergence indicates a novel structure form of non-open Ln-containing high-nuclearity clusters, and affords a consummate pattern to analyse and assemble the complex cluster-molecules. In addition, Gd158Co38@Cl-12 breaks the record magnetic entropy change of 3d-4f clusters with -Delta S-m(max) = 46.95 J kg(-1) K-1 at 7.0 T, 2.0 K.