Synthesis, Structure Elucidation, and Physical Properties of Naked Guanidinates of Europium and Ytterbium

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Richard Dronskowski
• Subject Area: Solid State and Surface Chemistry, Material Synthesis
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 320752186

Within the recent years we have succeeded, for the first time ever, to synthesize and characterize solid guanidinates of the alkali and alkaline-earth metals which are true salts containing a naked anionic (singly or doubly) deprotonated guanidine molecule. We would now like to extend this approach to the rare-earth metals europium and ytterbium, in particular because both are soluble (as divalent europium and di-/trivalent ytterbium) in liquid ammonia, to eventually come up with an analogous synthetic chemistry as compared to the alkali and alkaline-earth metals. Because our synthetic route does allow for two sorts of deprotonated guanidinate anions, the aforementioned combination of guanidine and europium/ytterbium promises an exceptionally rich solid-state chemistry. Besides the sheer existence of the new compounds, we are very much interested in their structures and, in particular, in their magnetic and optical properties of the Eu(II) and Yb(III) compounds, especially because of the metal coordination by the nitrogen atoms of the guanidine molecule.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants