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Conformational Panorama and Chirality Controlled Structure-Energy Relationship in a Chiral Carboxylic Acid Dimer
Fan Xie1, Nathan A Seifert1,2, Wolfgang Jäger1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2G2, Canada.
Abstract:
Chirality recognition in dimers of tetrahydro-2-furoic acid (THFA) was studied in a conformer-specific manner using rotational spectroscopy and theoretical approaches. THFA shows a strong preference for the trans- over the cis-COOH configuration. Two drastically different scenarios are possible for the detectable (THFA)2 : a kinetically preferred dimer bound by feeble interactions between two trans THFAs or a thermodynamically favored dimer with a double hydrogen-bonded ring structure between two cis subunits. To identify the conformers responsible for the extremely dense rotational spectra observed, it was essential not only to locate several hundred homo/heterochiral (THFA)2 minima in ab initio calculations but also to evaluate the energetic connectivities among the minima. The study further reveals an interesting chirality dependent structure-energy ordering relationship. A method for enantiomeric excess (ee) determination of THFA is presented using a recently proposed chiral self-tag approach.
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