Hydrothermal synthesis and characterization of a zinc-substituted gallium phosphite, [H3N(CH2)2NH3]1/2 · [GaZn(HPO3)3(H2O)2]

An organically templated zinc-substituted gallium phosphite, [H3N(CH2)2NH3]1/2 · [GaZn(HPO3)3(H2O)2] was synthesized under mild hydrothermal conditions in the presence of ethylenediamine (en) as structure-directing agent and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pbcn with unit cell parameters: a = 18.6146(10) Å, b = 11.0454(6) Å, c = 10.9074(4) Å, V = 2242.62(19) Å3 and Z = 8. This compound has a three-dimensional framework built up from secondary building units (SBU) of Ga(III) (or Zn(II)) and HPO3 pseudopyramid by sharing vertices. The structure displays a two-dimensional channel system running along the [0 0 1] and [0 1 0] direction with 5-, 8- and 10-membered rings. The diprotonated ethylenediamine template molecules are located in the channels. In this structure, some of the Ga(III) sites are occupied by Zn(II) atoms. The compound was also characterized by IR spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma (ICP), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), differential thermal and thermogravimetric analyses.