We report the synthesis, physicochemical characterization, and crystal structure of Cu-SP (SP = styrylphosphonic acid, H2O3PCH=CH2(C6H5)), the first reported example of a metal derivative of SP. The starting SP acid was fully characterized by X-ray single-crystal diffractometry, elemental analysis (C and H), 31P-NMR, 13C-NMR, 1H-NMR, HPLC, UV–vis, MS, TG, and FT-IR spectroscopy. The copper(II) derivative was synthesized and characterized by DTA-TG and FT-IR, and also its structure was determined from powder data. The crystal structure was refined by the Rietveld method. The crystal structure of Cu-SP shows a layered 2-D architecture, where the organic moieties are pointed toward the interlamellar space. The inorganic layers are composed of Cu2+ dimers, where the coordination geometry of Cu2+ can be described as distorted trigonal bipyramid. The three
coplanar oxygens (O2, O3, and O3) have bond distances of 2.165(9), 1.982(9), and 2.103(11) Å, respectively. The bond lengths for the apical oxygens (O1 and O2) are 1.908(13) and 1.996(11) Å, respectively.
