Toward an intimate understanding of the structural properties and conformational preferences of oxoesters and thioesters: gas and crystal structure and conformational analysis of Dimethyl Monothiocarbonate, CH3OC(O)SCH3

ERBEN, M.F.; BOESE, R.; DELLA VÉDOVA, C.O.; OBERHAMMER, H.; WILLNER, H.

JOURNAL OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY

American Chemical Society

Año: 2006 vol. XX p. 1 - 7

0022-3263

The molecular structure and conformational properties of dimethyl monothiocarbonate, CH3OC(O)SCH3, have been studied in the gas phase by gas electron diffraction (GED) and vibrational spectroscopy and in the solid state by X-ray crystallography. The experimental investigations were supplemented by quantum chemical calculations at the B3LYP/6-311++G(3df,2p) and MP2/6-311++G(2df,p) levels of approximation. The gaseous molecule exhibits only one conformation having Cs symmetry with synperiplanar orientation of both the C-S and the C-O single bonds relative to the C=O double bond. The following skeletal geometric parameters were derived from the GED analysis (rhl values with 3s uncertainties): C=O = 1.203(4) Å, C(sp2)-O = 1.335(5) Å, C(sp3)-O = 1.437(5) Å, C(sp2)-S = 1.763(5) Å, and C(sp3)-S = 1.803(5) Å; O-C-O = 125.9(8)°, O-C-S = 125.7(7)°, O-C-S = 108.4(9)°, and C- O-C = 113.4(15)°. The structure of a single crystal, grown by a miniature zone-melting procedure, was determined by X-ray diffraction analysis at a low temperature. The crystalline solid [monoclinic, P21/n, a = 12.6409(9) Å, b = 4.1678(3) Å, and c = 19.940(1) Å, a = 98.164(1)°] exists exclusively as molecules in the synperiplanar conformation and with geometrical parameters that agree with those of the molecule in the gas phase. The results are discussed in terms of anomeric and mesomeric effects and in terms of a natural bond orbital analysis.