Rotation-Inversion Isomerization of Tertiary Carbamates: Potential Energy Surface Analysis of Multi-Paths Isomerization Using Boltzmann Statistics

Potential energy surface (PES) analyses at the SMD[MP2/6–311++G(d,p)] level and higher-level energies up to MP4(fc,SDTQ) are reported for the fluorinated tertiary carbamate N-ethyl-N-(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl) methyl carbamate ( VII ) and its parent system N,N-dimethyl methyl carbamate ( VI ). Emphasis is placed on the analysis of the rotational barrier about the CN carbamate bond and its interplay with the hybridization of the N-lone pair (NLP). All rotational transition state (TS) structures were found by computation of 1D relaxed rotational profiles but only 2D PES scans revealed the rotation-inversion paths in a compelling fashion. We found four unique chiral minima of VII , one pair each of E- and Z-rotamers, and we determined the eight unique rotational TS structures associated with every possible E/Z-isomerization path. It is a significant finding that all TS structures feature N-pyramidalization whereas the minima essentially contain sp²-hybridized nitrogen. We will show that the TS stabilities are affected by the synergetic interplay between NLP/CO₂ repulsion minimization, NLP→σ^*(CO) negative hyperconjugation, and two modes of intramolecular through-space electrostatic stabilization. We demonstrate how Boltzmann statistics must be applied to determine the predicted experimental rotational barrier based on the energetics of all eight rotamerization pathways. The computed barrier for VII is in complete agreement with the experimentally measured barrier of the very similar fluorinated carbamate N-Boc-N-(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)-4-aminobutan-1-ol II . NMR properties of VII were calculated with a variety of density functional/basis set combinations and Boltzmann averaging over the E- and Z-rotamers at our best theoretical level results in good agreement with experimental chemical shifts δ(¹³C) and J(¹³C,¹⁹F) coupling constants of II (within 6 %).