Crystalline gas of 1,1,1-trichloroethane

Abstract

Isobaric freezing of 1,1,1-trichloroethane yields crystals where all the intermolecular contacts are much longer than the sums of the van der Waals radii and only in the structure compressed to ca. 1.2 GPa do the first Cl⋯Cl contacts become commensurate with this sum. This sheds new light on the range of intermolecular interactions that are capable of controlling molecular re-orientation and arrangement.