Cadmium dicarboxylate coordination polymers incorporating a long-spanning organodiimine: in situ alkene isomerization and an unprecedented chiral 6(5)8 two-dimensional network.

Reaction of cadmium nitrate, maleic acid, and N,N'-bis(4-pyridylmethyl)piperazine (bpmp) in a methanol/water mixed solvent system at 25 degrees C resulted in an unexpected in situ isomerization and formation of [[Cd(fumarate)(bpmp)(H2O)2] x 2H2O]n (1), which exhibits a system of mutually interpenetrated [Cd(fumarate)(bpmp)(H(2)O)]n grid-like coordination polymer layers. A similar reaction using cadmium chloride and succinic acid produced [[Cd(succinate)(bpmp)(CH3OH)] x 2H2O]n (2), which manifests a chiral two-dimensional coordination polymer network with an unprecedented 6(5)8 topology. The differences in the conformations of the four-carbon dicarboxylate tethers (anti in , gauche in ) and cadmium coordination environment (octahedral in , pentagonal bipyramidal in ) play a significant role in structure direction during self-assembly. Thermal properties of and are also reported.