Crystal polymorphs of barbital: news about a classic polymorphic system.

Abstract

Barbital is a hypnotic agent that has been intensely studied for many decades. The aim of this work was to establish a clear and comprehensible picture of its polymorphic system. Four of the six known solid forms of barbital (denoted I0, III, IV, and V) were characterized by various analytical techniques, and the thermodynamic relationships between the polymorph phases were established. The obtained data permitted the construction of the first semischematic energy/temperature diagram for the barbital system. The modifications I0, III, and V are enantiotropically related to one another. Polymorph IV is enantiotropically related to V and monotropically related to the other two forms. The transition points for the pairs I0/III, I0/V, and III/IV lie below 20 °C, and the transition point for IV/V is above 20 °C. At room temperature, the order of thermodynamic stability is I0 > III > V > IV. The metastable modification III is present in commercial samples and has a high kinetic stability. The solid-state NMR spectra provide information on aspects of crystallography (viz., the asymmetric units and the nature of hydrogen bonding). The known correlation between specific N–H···O=C hydrogen bonding motifs of barbiturates and certain IR characteristics was used to predict the H-bonded pattern of polymorph IV.