TY - GEN A1 - Bhattacharya, Biswajit A1 - Michalchuk, Adam A1 - Emmerling, Franziska T1 - Revealing Mechanical Plastic Bending in Coordination Polymer Crystals N2 - Crystalline molecular materials with mechanical flexibility are promising for technological development. This is particularly true for the development of advanced materials with optoelectronic and biomedical applications. While a growing number of mechanically flexible crystalline molecular materials are being reported,1 they remain scarce. At present, most discoveries are serendipitous, as limited design strategies are currently known. Amongst these strategies Desiraju et. al. suggested that elastic materials must contain herringbone structures.2 For plastic crystals, the so-called ‘shape-synthon’ strategy has been developed, in which weak non-covalent interactions are introduced into structures to facilitate mobility of molecules.3 This includes formation of slip planes. Generally, these models have performed very well at predicting and rationalizing the mechanical properties of new materials. Recently, however, a family of one-dimensional covalent networks (coordination polymers; CPs) has been described, which show mechanical elasticity. With drastically different structural chemistry, these systems do not seem to adhere to the currently established rules. Herein, we present the first such system: a plastically bendable crystal of a 1D CP, [Zn(-Cl)2(3,5-Cl2Py)2]n (where 3,5-Cl2Py = 3,5-dichloro pyridine). This CP crystallizes in a tetragonal, and can therefore be bent over two major faces to acute angles without fracturing. We conducted bending and indentation experiments to quantify the mechanical properties of the CP crystal. This was complimented by Vibrational (Raman and Terahertz) spectroscopy and theoretical calculations for deeper understanding of molecular level structural deformation. T2 - 32nd European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM32) CY - University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria DA - 18.08.2019 KW - Mechanical Flexiblity KW - Crystal engineering KW - Coordination Polymers PY - 2019 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/49875 AN - OPUS4-49875 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany