Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 26, 2026

Palladium N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes: Synthesis from Benzimidazolium Salts and Catalytic Activity in Carbon-carbon Bond-forming Reactions
Published on: July 30, 2017
The Curious Case of 2-Propyl-1H-benzimidazole in the Solid State: An Experimental and Theoretical Study
María Mar Quesada-Moreno1, Aurora J Cruz-Cabeza2, Juan Ramón Avilés-Moreno3
1Departamento de Química Física y Analítica, Universidad de Jaén , Campus Las Lagunillas, E-23071 Jaén, Spain.
Abstract:
2-Propyl-1H-benzimidazole (2PrBzIm) is a small molecule, commercially available, which displays a curious behavior in the solid state. 2PrBzIm, although devoid of chirality by fast rotation about a single bond of the propyl group in solution, crystallizes as a conglomerate showing chiroptical properties. An exhaustive analysis of its crystal structure and a wide range of experiments monitored by vibrational circular dichroism spectroscopy eliminated all possibilities of an artifact. What remains is a new example of the unexplained phenomenon of persistent supramolecular chirality.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Directing and Steric Effects in Disubstituted Benzene Derivatives
NMR Spectroscopy of Benzene Derivatives
Structure of Benzene: Molecular Orbital Model
Stability of Substituted Cyclohexanes
The two chair conformations of cyclohexanes undergo rapid interconversion at room temperature. Both forms have identical energies and stabilities, each comprising equal amounts of the equilibrium mixture. Replacing a hydrogen atom with a functional group makes the two conformations energetically non-equivalent.
For example, in...
Basicity of Heterocyclic Aromatic Amines
Structure of Benzene: Kekulé Model
He proposed that benzene has a cyclic structure of six carbon atoms attached to one hydrogen atom each, with three alternating pi bonds.

