A family of compounds with multiple properties : molecular oxides

This presentation provides an introduction to the chemistry of molecular oxides, a very broad family of compounds also known as polyoxometallates. First, the basics behind this chemistry are briefly outlined, in terms of the chemical composition of these species, the main structural types and their behavior in solution. Then, in a second step, we highlighted the advantage that the fact of possessing a purely inorganic structure can bring to these entities, highlighting through recent examples the remarkable implication of such compounds in fields as diverse as catalysis or molecular magnetism. It was then indicated that the formation of hybrid species by grafting organic fragments onto the inorganic core can modulate certain physico-chemical properties of these molecular oxides, this being demonstrated by examples illustrating the ability of these species to enable the formation of nanosystems (nanoparticles, nanowires, etc.), or to improve them, as shown by recent studies focusing on the anti-tumor properties of hybrid polyoxometallates. It has also been shown that the development of hybrid materials can prove crucial in targeting certain physical properties such as photochromism. Finally, the use of molecular oxides as building blocks for the construction of coordination polymers is proposed, and directions that could lead to porous systems are presented.