Zinc Saccharate: A Robust, 3D Coordination Network with Two Types of Isolated, Parallel Channels, One Hydrophilic and the Other Hydrophobic

A chessboard pattern: Saccharic acid, which could become a cheap chiral feedstock for possible “green” heterogeneous catalysts and sieves of the future, gives a robust crystalline zinc derivative, which is unusual in having within the same crystal structure two types of channels with very different characteristics: one hydrophilic, the other hydrophobic. These channels are isolated from each other by seemingly impenetrable walls, which produces, in projection, the pattern shown.