Abstract: | The spatial structure of the sesquiterpene humulane alcohol juniferol, which is represented in the crystal by two conformers, IA and IB, differing by the conformation of the C2...C9 section, has been established by the x-ray structural method. The strain energies of the conformers have been calculated by the method of molecular mechanics. The barrier to the interconversion of the conformers by rotation of the C2...C9 section has been calculated; it amounts to 7–8 kcal/mole. This value of the transformation barrier permits the assumption that the two conformers also exist in solution, their interconversion being hindered.Institute of Chemistry of Plant Substances, Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR, Tashkent. Institute of Crystallography, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow. Translated from Khimiya Prirodnykh Soedinenii, No. 6, pp. 757–762, November–December, 1990. |