42. POLYOXOMOLYBDATE CLUSTERS: GIANT WHEELS AND BALLS

The syntheses of aesthetically beautiful nanoscaled polyoxomolybdates of the type {Mo11}n, which have spherical-/ball- (n 12) or wheel-shaped (n 14) anions (see Figs. 1–3) and are interesting not only for inorganic chemistry, are reported. In spite of their completely different overall structure, they have similar building blocks1,2 (see also Refs. 3, 4) (Fig. 1), resulting in the remarkable equivalent stoichiometry.1 Important in this context is that the species can prob-ably be considered as belonging to the class of the most complex discrete inor-ganic species and consequently, their characterization was correspondingly complex. A formulation of the discrete wheel-type species (Fig. 2), which is useful for reactivity studies, corresponds to [{MoVI2 O4 (2-O) L2