A building block strategy to access sulfur-functionalized polyoxometalate based systems using {Mo2S2O2} and {Mo3S4} as constitutional units, linkers or templates.

The present tutorial review reports on the synthetic approaches for the formation of "polyoxothiometalate" compounds with special emphasis on the unique reactivity of the preformed sulfur-containing cationic building blocks {Mo(2)O(2)S(2)}(2+) and {Mo(3)S(4)}(4+) toward polyoxometalate building blocks. Such simple chemical systems, based on chemical and structural complementarities between ionic reactive moieties have led to the synthesis of a series of relevant clusters with unrivalled large nuclearity structural arrangements, such as loops, triangles, squares and boxes. Specific reaction parameters and considerations will be pointed out showing that a deliberate pure inorganic supramolecular chemistry based on weak interactions, flexibility and dynamic is possible with polyoxometalates.