Conformations of substituted benzophenones.

The inclination of the two aryl rings (ring twists) in a series of benzophenone molecules has been examined. For each structure the dihedral angle (between the planes of the two sets of six aromatic C atoms) relates to both the steric considerations of the single molecule and the packing forces related to the crystal structure. Six new benzophenone structures are incorporated into the study including 2,2'-dihydroxy-4,4'-dimethoxybenzophenone (I), C(15)H(14)O(5), that appears to have the smallest reported twist angle, 37.85 (5) degrees , of any substituted benzophenone reported to date. Three further benzophenones, 4,4'-bis(diethylamino)benzophenone (II), C(21)H(28)N(2)O, 3,4-dihydroxybenzophenone (III), C(13)H(10)O(3), and 3-hydroxybenzophenone (IV), C(13)H(10)O(2), have similar ring twists [49.83 (5), 49.84 (5) and 51.61 (5) degrees , respectively] that are comparable with the value of 54 degrees found for the orthorhombic form of unsubstituted benzophenone. 4-Chloro-4'-hydroxybenzophenone (V), C(13)H(9)ClO(2), has a ring twist of 64.66 (8) degrees that is close to the value of 65 degrees found in the metastable monoclinic form of unsubstituted benzophenone and 2-amino-2',5-dichlorobenzophenone (VI), C(13)H(9)Cl(2)NO(2), has a large ring twist of 83.72 (6) degrees . Comparisons with a further 98 substituted benzophenone molecules from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) have been made.