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This article, presented from a personal point of view, is concerned with the design of ligands intended to give specifically either binuclear or tetranuclear metal complexes or coordination polymers. No attempt is made to provide a comprehensive coverage of these topics, the focus being mainly upon results from our laboratory. Some emphasis is placed upon aspects of the historical development of the deliberate construction of coordination polymers (aka MOFs)--materials promising useful applications, the study of which continues to expand exponentially. Some of our recent research is described in which the carbonate ion and the tetracyanoquinodimethane dianion are used as bridging ligands to generate targeted coordination polymers. It is intended that Dalton Perspectives be easily comprehensible to non-specialists in the field; an average second year university chemistry student should be easily able to understand the present contribution.
Richard Robson (Tue,) studied this question.