Structures and properties of mercury(II) coordination polymers

During the last two decades, coordination polymers have received much attention and the number of synthesized compounds is still growing, which is mainly due to their potential application in such fields as microelectronics, nonlinear optics, molecular selection, ion exchange and catalysis. In contrast, coordination polymers of transition metals ions, the formation of polymers with main group metal ions such as mercury(II) is disproportionately sparse when compared with those of other metals. Because of the effects of mercury on environment and its polymers’ applications, it is necessary to understand mercury's ability to bind donors and form complexes or coordination polymers. This review provides an overview of all the reported coordination polymers of mercury(II) after 1990 and a summary of their properties. One-dimensional polymers, constituted the majority of the mercury(II) coordination polymers and the most frequent coordination number for mercury(II) is four.