E. Saiz, E. Riande
Sep 1, 1995
Citations
0
Influential Citations
11
Citations
Journal
Journal of Chemical Physics
Abstract
The conformational mobility of 2‐chlorocyclohexyl isobutyrate (CCHI), a model compound for the repeating unit of vinyl polymers containing chlorocyclohexane residues as side groups, is analyzed employing molecular dynamics (MD) procedures. Close to room temperature (ca. 300 K), the interconversion between axial (i.e., both chlorine atom and ester group in axial positions) and equatorial (both substituents in equatorial orientations) is not observed within the total time of 5 ns allowed to the MD trajectories. The analysis was then performed at temperatures in the range 1000 to 1500 K and the results extrapolated to lower temperatures. These extrapolations give energetic barriers of 5.72 and 8.15 kcal/mol, respectively for axial→equatorial and equatorial→axial transformations, with life times of τax≊9.6 and τeq≊46.3 ns for these two conformations at 300 K. The same procedure applied to unsubstituted cyclohexane gives an energetic barrier of 10.6 kcal/mol for the chair to chair interconversion, in excellent...