Lanthanide-uranyl phosphonates constructed from diethyl ((phenylsulfonyl)methyl)phosphonate.

Lanthanide-uranyl phosphonates possess intriguing crystal structures and huge application prospects, but the construction of these materials remains challenging. In this work, we demonstrate that new uranyl and lanthanide-uranyl sulfonylphosphonates with elegant crystal structures and photophysical properties can be assembled hydrothermally by employing the heterofunctional diethyl phosphonate (diethyl ((phenylsulfonyl)methyl)phosphonate, Et 2 L) as a precursor ligand, which provides an effective strategy for the construction of lanthanide-uranyl phosphonates.