Metallaoctahedron Derived from the Self-Assembly of Tetranuclear Metal-Organic Ligands.

Construction of 3D terpyridine-based metallopolyhedra remains challenging because of the linear coordination geometry of ⟨tpy-MII-tpy⟩ connectivity. A progressive strategy is made by assembling tetranuclear terpyridyl metal-organic ligands to afford a novel regular octahedron, whose structure was established by NMR, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, traveling-wave ion-mobility mass spectrometry, atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. This strategy provides an efficient method for the construction of 3D terpyridine-based metallopolyhedra.