pH-Specific Crystalline Binary and Ternary Metal–Organic Framework Materials of Pb(II) with (Di)Tricarboxylate Ligands and N,N′‑Aromatic Chelators. Structure, Architecture-Lattice Dimensionality, and Electronic Spectroscopic Property Correlations

Efforts to probe and delineate intricate structure–property relationships key to the development of crystalline Pb­(II)-containing metal–organic framework materials led to the design and pH-specific hydrothermal synthetic investigation of binary/ternary Pb­(II)-(di)­tricarboxylate ligand (succinic, glutaric, tricarballylic acids) systems in the presence of variable-nature aromatic N,N′-chelators bipyridine (bpy)/phenanthroline (phen). The arisen crystalline materials [Pb­(phen)­(suc)]n (1), [Pb3(phen)3­(glu)3]n­·7nH2O (2), [Pb3(tca)2]n (3), and [Pb2(phen)2­(tcaH)2]n­·nH2O (4) provide evidence for structural correlations linking the nature of ligands with Pb­(II) chemistry and the emerging crystalline-polymeric assemblies. Detailed physicochemical characterization (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, 13C-,207Pb-cross polarization magic angle spinning NMR, thermogravimetric analysis, luminescence) reveals distinct architecture, lattice dimensionality (2D-3D), and luminescence property correlations and identifies structural and electronic factors interweaving into the design of functional materials.