Computational and solid-state studies of arene-arene interactions

ORGN 350

Michelle Watt, wattm@slu.edu and Michael Lewis, LewisM5@slu.edu. Department of Chemistry, Saint Louis University, 3501 Laclede Ave., St. Louis, MO 63103
Recent work in our group on face-to-face arene-arene interactions of benzene and substituted aromatics showed an excellent correlation between the face-to-face arene-arene binding energies and the sum of the Hammett substituent constants σp (Σσp) of the substituted aromatics. The results of these computational studies correlate with the types of arene-arene 1:1 co-crystals in the Crystal Structure Database. Here we will present work that extends this line of inquiry by expanding the computational studies and by preparing 1:1 co-crystals that, based on our theoretical studies, should exist in a face-to-face conformation.