Heptanuclear and Decanuclear Manganese Complexes with the Anion of 2-Hydroxymethylpyridine Nicholas C. Harden, Milissa A. Bolcar, Wolfgang Wernsdorfer, # Khalil A. Abboud, William E. Streib, ‡,§ and George Christou* ,†,‡ Department of Chemistry, UniVersity of Florida, GainesVille, Florida 32611-7200, Department of Chemistry and Molecular Structure Center, Indiana UniVersity, Bloomington, Indiana 47405-4001, and Laboratoire Louis Ne ´ el-CNRS, BP166, 25 AVenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, Cedex 9, France Received July 28, 2003 The synthesis and magnetic properties are reported of two new clusters [Mn 10 O 4 (OH) 2 (O 2 CMe) 8 (hmp) 8 ](ClO 4 ) 4 (1) and [Mn 7 (OH) 3 (hmp) 9 Cl 3 ](Cl)(ClO 4 )(2). Complex 1 was prepared by treatment of [Mn 3 O(O 2 CMe) 6 (py) 3 ](ClO 4 ) with 2-(hydroxymethyl)pyridine (hmpH) in CH 2 Cl 2 , whereas 2 was obtained from the reaction of MnCl 2 4H 2 O, hmpH, and NBu n 4 MnO 4 in MeCN followed by recrystallization in the presence of NBu n 4 ClO 4 . Complex 12py10CH 2 Cl 2 2H 2 O crystallizes in the triclinic space group P1 h. The cation consists of 10 Mn III ions, 8 µ 3 -O 2- ions, 2 µ 3 -OH - ions, 8 bridging acetates, and 8 bridging and chelating hmp - ligands. The hmp - ligands bridge through their O atoms in two ways: two with µ 3 -O atoms and six with µ 2 -O atoms. Complex 23CH 2 Cl 2 H 2 O crystallizes in the triclinic space group P1 h. The cation consists of four Mn II and three Mn III ions, arranged as a Mn 6 hexagon of alternating Mn II and Mn III ions surrounding a central Mn II ion. The remaining ligation is by three µ 3 -OH - ions, three terminal chloride ions, and nine bridging and chelating hmp - ligands. Six hmp - ligands contain µ 2 -O atoms and three contain µ 3 -O atoms. The Cl - anion is hydrogen-bonded to the three µ 3 -OH - ions. Variable-temperature direct current (dc) magnetic susceptibility data were collected for complex 1 in the 5.00-300 K range in a 5 kG applied field. The M T value gradually decreases from 17.87 cm 3 mol -1 K at 300 K to 1.14 cm 3 mol -1 K at 5.00 K, indicating an S ) 0 ground state. The ground-state spin of complex 2 was established by magnetization measurements in the 0.5-3.0 T and 1.80-4.00 K ranges. Fitting of the data by matrix diagonalization, incorporating only axial anisotropy (DS ˆ z 2 ), gave equally good fits with S ) 10, g ) 2.13, D ) -0.14 cm -1 and S ) 11, g ) 1.94, D ) -0.11 cm -1 . Magnetization versus dc field scans down to 0.04 K reveal no hysteresis attributable to single-molecule magnetism behavior, only weak intermolecular interactions. Introduction A wide variety of polynuclear Mn clusters have been synthesized to date with the metal in the oxidation state range of II-IV, including clusters with mixed-valency. These complexes usually contain carboxylate ligands, and they are usually molecular but are sometimes polymeric. 1 Molecular species with metal nuclearities up to 30 have been reported to date. 2,3 One of our interests in these molecules is the often large ground-state spin (S) that they possess and the resulting possibility that such molecules might function as single- molecule magnets (SMMs). 4 A SMM possesses a significant * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: christou@chem.ufl.edu. ² University of Florida. Indiana University. # Laboratoire Louis Ne ´el. § Deceased. (1) Tasiopoulos, A. J.; Harden, N. C.; Abboud, K. A.; Christou, G. Polyhedron 2003, 22, 133. (2) (a) Aromi, G.; Aubin, S. M. J.; Bolcar, M. A.; Christou, G.; Eppley, H. J.; Folting, K.; Gatteschi, D.; Hendrickson, D. N.; Huffman, J. C.; Squire, R. C.; Tsai, H.-L.; Wang, S.; Wemple, M. W. Polyhedron 1998, 17, 3005. (b) Chakov, N. E.; Abboud, K. A.; Zakharov, L. N.; Rheingold, A. L.; Hendrickson, D. N.; Christou, G. Polyhedron 2003, 22, 1759. (c) Brockman, J. T.; Abboud, K. A.; Hendrickson, D. N.; Christou, G. Polyhedron 2003, 22, 1765. (d) Soler, M.; Wernsdorfer, W.; Abboud, K. A.; Hendrickson, D. N.; Christou, G. Polyhedron 2003, 22, 1777. (e) Soler, M.; Wernsdorfer, W.; Sun, Z.; Ruiz, D.; Huffman, J. C.; Hendrickson, D. N.; Christou, G. Polyhedron 2003, 22, 1783. (3) Soler, M.; Rumberger, E.; Folting, K.; Hendrickson, D. N.; Christou, G. Polyhedron 2001, 20, 1365. (4) Christou, G.; Gatteschi, D.; Hendrickson, D. N.; Sessoli, R. MRS Bull. 2000, 25, 66. Inorg. Chem. 2003, 42, 7067-7076 10.1021/ic0348906 CCC: $25.00 © 2003 American Chemical Society Inorganic Chemistry, Vol. 42, No. 22, 2003 7067 Published on Web 10/04/2003