Syntheses, structures and luminescent properties of the metal complexes based on Zn(II) or Cd(II) with 5-nitro-8-hydroxyquinoline

•Five complexes based on 5-nitro-quinoline-8-yl acetate were obtained.•The complexes reveal different network structures.•The complexes exhibit interesting fluorescent properties in the solid state.

Five new complexes of Cd(II) and Zn(II), [M(C9H5N2O3)2(CH3OH)2] (1, 2) and [M(C9H5N2O3)2(C2H8N2)] (3, 4) (M = Zn(II) and Cd(II)) and [Zn(C9H5N2O3)2(C10H8N2)] (5), have been prepared by the slowly release methods of 5-nitro-8-hydroxyquinoline from 5-nitro-quinoline-8-yl acetate and characterized by elemental analysis, IR, thermal gravimetric analysis, fluorescence measurement and single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. All the complexes are mononuclear and show excellent luminescence properties in the solid state at room temperature.

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