Elastically Flexible Crystals have Disparate Mechanisms of Molecular Movement Induced by Strain and Heat

Aidan J Brock; Jacob J Whittaker; Joshua A Powell; Michael C Pfrunder; Arnaud Grosjean; Simon Parsons; John C McMurtrie; Jack K Clegg

doi:10.1002/anie.201806431

Elastically Flexible Crystals have Disparate Mechanisms of Molecular Movement Induced by Strain and Heat

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Aug 27;57(35):11325-11328. doi: 10.1002/anie.201806431. Epub 2018 Jul 30.

Authors

Aidan J Brock¹, Jacob J Whittaker¹, Joshua A Powell¹, Michael C Pfrunder¹, Arnaud Grosjean², Simon Parsons³, John C McMurtrie⁴, Jack K Clegg¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
² School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia.
³ Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK.
⁴ School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George St, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia.

PMID: 29998602
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201806431

Abstract

Elastically flexible crystals form an emerging class of materials that exhibit a range of notable properties. The mechanism of thermal expansion in flexible crystals of bis(acetylacetonato)copper(II) is compared with the mechanism of molecular motion induced by bending and it is demonstrated that the two mechanisms are distinct. Upon bending, individual molecules within the crystal structure reversibly rotate, while thermal expansion results predominantly in an increase in intermolecular separations with only minor changes to molecular orientation through rotation.

Keywords: copper(II); crystallography; flexible crystals; supramolecular; thermal expansion.