Modified polyoxometalate: A novel bi-antimony capped, highly reduced α-Keggin polyoxoanion, image

A novel modified POM image(im)2·2H2O (im = imidazole) (1) has been hydrothermally synthesized from the system Sb2O3–H3PMo12O40–H2C2O4–im and characterized by elemental analysis, IR, UV–Vis, XPS, TGA and single crystal X-ray diffraction. The highly reduced polyoxoanion image represents the first example of bi-antimony capped α-Keggin phosphomolybdate, in which the Sb atoms exhibit novel Ψ-rhombic pyramidal {SbO4E} hemidirected coordination geometry with coordination number 4.