Lanthanide nitrate reacted with H(2)salen at room temperature in MeOH/CH2Cl
2 affording a novel polymeric chain complex, [La(H(2)salen)(NO3)(3)(MeOH)(2
)](n). The complex displayed an unusual coordination pattern where the imin
e nitrogen atoms of the H(2)salen molecule were not coordinated. Instead, t
he two phenolic oxygen atoms, which were often believed to be uncoordinated
in previous studies, were found to coordinate respectively to two La atoms
.