A rare all-Mn2+ decametallic cage from distorted face-sharing cubes

The incorporation of the PF6- counterion in the MnII/PhCO2-/2-pyridinealdoxime[(py)C(H)NOH] reaction system leads to a novel [MnII10] cluster containing the shown, unprecedented metal topology based on distorted face-sharing cubes; there are two different bridging modes for the (py)C(H)NO− groups, one unprecedented. The ground-state total spin of the cluster is ST = 0.