The Origin of the Chiral gauche-Conformation Preferences in Halomethyl Methyl Ethers. A Hybrid-Density Functional Study and Natural Bond Orbital Interpretation

Abstract

The effects of the stereoelectronic interaction on the structural and conformational properties of fluoromethyl methyl ether (1) and its analogues containing Cl (2), Br (3), and I (4) atoms were investigated by means of hybrid-density functional based method (B3LYP/Def2-TZVPP) and natural bond orbital (NBO) interpretation. Consistent with the reported experimental data, the chiral gauche conformations of compounds 1–4 are more stable than their corresponding anti conformations. The results showed that the energy barriers of the racemization processes of the chiral gauche-conformations of compounds 1–4 via the plane symmetrical anti conformations are smaller than the plane symmetrical eclipsed transition structures. According to the NBO analysis, the hyperconjugative generalized anomeric effect (HCGAE) increased from compound 1 to compound 4, which explains the increase of the energy discrepancy between their corresponding chiral gauche- and plane symmetrical anti-conformations. In contrast to the trend for the HCGAE, the determined dipole moment discrepancy between the chiral gauche- and plane symmetrical anti-conformations (µanti–µgauche) reduced from compound 1 to compound 4. This fact reveals that there is no correlation between the variations of the conformational preferences in compounds 1–4 and the electrostatic effects associated with the dipole–dipole interactions. There is an excellent agreement between the racemization energy barriers and the proportion between the GAE for compounds 2–4 and compound 1 (i.e., GAEx/GAE1) as well as the difference between the Wiberg Bond Indexes of C1–O2 bonds (Δ[WBIanti-gauche(C1–O2)]). The associations between the HCGAE, pairwise steric exchange energies (PSEE), WBI, dipole moments, orbital integrals, structural parameters, and conformational behaviors of compounds 1–4 have been studied.