Determination of crystal structures and tautomeric states of 2-ammoniobenzenesulfonates by laboratory X-ray powder diffraction

Abstract

Abstract The crystal structures of 4-chloro-5-methyl-2-ammoniobenzenesulfonate and of the corresponding derivatives 4,5-dimethyl- and 4,5-dichloro-2-ammoniobenzenesulfonates have been determined from laboratory X-ray powder diffraction data. The tautomeric state of all three compounds could also be unequivocally determined from laboratory data, using careful Rietveld refinements. The tautomeric state was confirmed by IR spectroscopy. The compounds are neither isostructural to each other nor to the 5-chloro-4-methyl derivate, despite the similar size of the chloro and methyl substituents. The influence of the chloro and methyl substituents on the packing and on the thermal stability is demonstrated. All crystal structures were confirmed by dispersion-corrected DFT calculations. For the 4-chloro-5-methyl and the 4,5-dichloro derivatives the DFT calculations indicated that the observed polymorph should not be the thermodynamical one. However, no other polymorphs could be found in experimental polymorph screening, even using seeding with the corresponding isostructural phases. Obviously the DFT methods need further improvements.