The crystal engineering potential and challenge of dl-malic acid, a chemical chameleon for coordination polymers.
- 1Department of Chemical Sciences, Bernal Institute, University of Limerick V94 T9PX Republic of Ireland [email protected].
Abstract
The conformational flexibility of malate anions, a biomass-derived linker ligand, enables a diverse range of coordination environments that complicates its utility for crystal engineering studies. This work seeks to expand upon our understanding of the malate anion as a linker for the generation of coordination networks. We report six dl-malate coordination compounds that can be classified as 1D coordination polymers, 2D coordination networks or porous hydrogen-bonded frameworks. In addition to analysis of the crystal structures, a CSD mining study was undertaken to examine the coordination behaviour of gauche- and trans-malate conformers upon the structure of 80 reported coordination polymers that comprise malate anions. Our analysis indicates that, whereas the torsional diversity of malate anions represents a crystal engineering challenge, there are possible crystal engineering strategies for biasing malate linkers to adopt a particular conformer in order to enable this green biomass-derived linker to control a specific structural outcome for coordination polymers.
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BibTeX
@article{page2026crystal,
title = {{The crystal engineering potential and challenge of dl-malic acid, a chemical chameleon for coordination polymers.}},
author = {Nicholas B Page and Michael J Zaworotko},
journal = {CrystEngComm},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1039/d6ce00715e},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42948755},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The crystal engineering potential and challenge of dl-malic acid, a chemical chameleon for coordination polymers.
AU - Nicholas B Page
AU - Michael J Zaworotko
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
JO - CrystEngComm
DO - 10.1039/d6ce00715e
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42948755
AB - The conformational flexibility of malate anions, a biomass-derived linker ligand, enables a diverse range of coordination environments that complicates its utility for crystal engineering studies. This work seeks to expand upon our understanding of the malate anion as a linker for the generation of coordination networks. We report six dl-malate coordination compounds that can be classified as 1D coordination polymers, 2D coordination networks or porous hydrogen-bonded frameworks. In addition to analysis of the crystal structures, a CSD mining study was undertaken to examine the coordination behaviour of gauche- and trans-malate conformers upon the structure of 80 reported coordination polymers that comprise malate anions. Our analysis indicates that, whereas the torsional diversity of malate anions represents a crystal engineering challenge, there are possible crystal engineering strategies for biasing malate linkers to adopt a particular conformer in order to enable this green biomass-derived linker to control a specific structural outcome for coordination polymers.
SN - 1466-8033
ER -