Conformational stability from variable temperature infrared spectra of rare gas solutions of 2-chloro-3-fluoropropene

Variable temperature (-55 to -155 degrees C) infrared spectra of rare gas solutions of 2-chloro-3-fluoropropene, H2C=C(Cl)CH2F, have been recorded from 3500 to 400 cm(-1). The relative intensities of 16 conformer pairs at ten different temperatures of a krypton solution have been measured and from these data an enthalpy difference of 271+/-27 cm(-1) (3.17+/-0.32 kJ x mol(-1)) has been obtained with the cis conformer the more stable form. Similar studies were also carried out in xenon and an enthalpy difference of 334+/-33 cm(-1) (4.00+/-0.39 kJ x mol(-1)) was obtained again with the cis conformer the more stable form. It is estimated that there is 35+/-2% of the gauche conformer present at ambient temperature. However, in the crystalline solid the gauche conformer is the stable rotamer. Extensive ab initio calculations with full electron correlation by the perturbation method at the MP2 level with a variety of basis sets as well as density functional theory calculations (DFT) by the B3LYP method have been carried out. Several of these calculations predict an energy difference in the range of 400 cm(-1) with the cis form the more stable conformer but most of the predicted energy differences are significantly larger than the experimentally determined value. The spectroscopic and theoretical results are discussed and compared with the corresponding quantities for some similar molecules.