Decavanadates: a building-block for supramolecular assemblies

A donor–acceptor intermolecular interaction survey was performed for compounds containing the [HnV10O28]6–n anion, based on a Cambridge Structural Database search and on X-ray data examples in recent literature. Our aim was to systematize the supramolecular motifs present in the solid-state structures in order to understand the key factors determining the crystal packing of decavanadates and to develop a base for a methodology to construct new arrays. We were able to find four different main motifs: monomers, dimers, 1D and 2D arrays that were systematically analysed. The supramolecular assemblies found seem to depend both in the degree and site of protonation of the decavanadates, as well as on the size and shape of solvent and cation molecules.