Crystal structures of manganese and cobalt dichloride monohydrate and deuteration effects on magnetic behavior.

This work reports the long sought crystal structures of the title members of the intriguing series of 3d transition metal dichloride monohydrates. The double chain structure which results from rearrangement of the well-known pseudo-octahedral coordination geometry and single chains in the corresponding metal chloride dihydrate is extremely unusual. MnCl2·H2O and CoCl2·H2O each crystallize in orthorhombic space group Pnma with Z = 4 and lattice parameters a = 9.