A one-dimensional chiral gadolinium complex based on a tartaric acid derivative: crystal structure, thermal behavior and magnetic properties

A new chiral one-dimensional gadolinium coordination polymer [Gd(HDTTA)3(CH3OH)3]n (1) (D-H2DTTA = (+)-Di-p-toluoyl-D-tartaric acid) was synthesized at room temperature, and fully structurally characterized by Infrared (IR), elemental analysis (EA), single-crystal and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). The structure analysis shows that complex 1 belongs to the trigonal system with R3 space group and displays an infinite chain structure along the c axis. In 1, each Gd3+ cation is in the tri-capped trigonal prism geometry, and neighboring Gd3+ cations are connected by three partly deprotonated HDTTA− ligands with the Gd···Gd distance of 7.686(1) Å. The circular dichroism (CD) spectrum demonstrates the chirality of the complex. Magnetic studies reveal that complex 1 displays weak antiferromagnetic interactions between Gd3+ cations and it exhibits a small magnetic entropy change (−ΔSm = 7.26 J kg−1 K−1 with ΔH = 7 T and T = 2.5 K) because of long Gd···Gd distance and relatively low magnetic density.