Raymond J. Abraham, Simone Angioloni, Mark Edgar and Fernando Sancassan
An improved LIS technique, using, Yb(fod)3 to obtain
the
paramagnetic induced shifts of all the spin ½ nuclei in the
molecule, together with complexation shifts obtained by the use of
Lu(fod)3 has been used to investigate conformational
isomerism
in 2-fluorobenzaldehyde 1, 2-fluoroacetophenone 2, methyl
2-fluorobenzoate
3 and the corresponding 2-trifluoromethyl compounds 4, 5 and 6. The use
of
fluorine LIS in these molecules was first established by analysis of
the
LIS in 4-fluorobenzaldehyde 7 and 4-trifluoromethylbenzaldehyde 8 in
which
conformational isomerism is not possible and confirmed in subsequent
analyses. It is shown that 19F LIS may be used with the same
degree of confidence as the corresponding 1H and
13C
LIS in theses molecules. Analysis of the LIS data was considered
together
with ab initio, modelling and solvation calculations to
provide a
comprehensive account of the conformer geometries and energies for
these
compounds in a variety of solvents. The 2-fluoro compounds are all
planar,
with the trans
(CO
·
·
·
F)
conformer always more stable, in 1 and 2 predominating in all but very
polar solvents. In the corresponding 2-trifluoromethyl compounds both
the
cis and trans conformers of the aldehyde 4 are planar
with the trans form predominating, but the ketone 5 is
essentially
in one orthogonal conformation and the ester 6 interconverting between
two
nonplanar conformations with the trans conformer
predominant.