As the pre-photodimerized dianthracene derivatives can cleave to monomers upon heating, thermal analyses were conducted for
1-Ln. Although the weight keeps almost constant in the TG curves below 200 ℃ (
Fig. 2a), the DSC curves show an exothermic peak at 168 ℃ for
1-Yb (Δ
H=47.79 kJ/mol) and
1-Er (Δ
H=44.27 kJ/mol) (
Fig. 2b). This is ascribed to the dissociation of depma
2 in
1-Ln, proved by
in-situ variable temperature infrared (IR) spectra. As shown in Figs. S5 and S6 (Supporting information), upon heating
1-Ln to 175 ℃, peaks at 1250 and 878 cm
−1 emerge corresponding to the C-H in-plane and out-of-plane bending vibrations of anthracene [
24]. The dissociation of depma
2 in
1-Ln leads to the formation of monomeric species LnL(depma)Cl (
2-Ln). Moreover, the DSC curves show another endothermic doublet peak at 231 and 237 ℃ for
1-Yb and 234 and 240 ℃ for
1-Er, with the total enthalpy values of 35.3 and 32.8 kJ/mol, respectively. TG analyses suggest the release of one molecule of CH
3CH
2Cl in the range of 200–250 ℃ for both
1-Yb and
1-Er (obs. 7.4%, calcd. 7.8%) (
Fig. 2a), which is further confirmed by the TG-MS analysis (Fig. S7 in Supporting information). The release of CH
3CH
2Cl is a result of intramolecular solid-state reaction between the ethyl group of depma and the coordinated Cl
− anion at elevated temperature, which phenomenon is unusual and was previously observed only in rare cases of coordination systems [
11,
25]. The elimination of chloroethane in
2-Ln is associated with the broken of one C-O(P) bond of depma, leading to LnL(epma) (
3-Ln, epma
−=9-ethylphosphonomethylanthracene anion). This process can be monitored by
in-situ IR spectra of
1-Ln. Indeed, the peak intensity of the P-O stretching vibration at 1016 cm
−1 decreases with increasing temperature, and finally the peak disappears above 200 ℃ (Figs. S5 and S6). The molecular formulae of
2-Ln and
3-Ln were confirmed by elemental analyses. The powder XRD measurements corroborate that the structures of
1-Ln,
2-Ln and
3-Ln are different from each other (Fig. S8 in Supporting information), but identical to the corresponding Dy and Gd analogues [
11]. The single crystallinity of
1-Ln is not retained after thermal treatment.