Structure-reactivity correlations for solid-state enantioselective photochemical reactions established directly from powder X-ray diffraction

A prerequisite for the development of structure-reactivity correlations for photoreactive crystalline materials is to have detailed knowledge of the structural properties of the reactant crystalline phase. In some cases, however, the materials of interest can be prepared only as microcrystalline powders and are not amenable to structural characterization by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. This paper demonstrates the utility of modern powder X-ray diffraction techniques for obtaining structural understanding in such cases, leading to the development of structure-reactivity correlations. In particular, a series of three photoreactive organic salts are considered, which undergo the same photochemical asymmetric reaction but with high enantiomeric excess in two cases and low enantiomeric excess in the other case. The structural properties of the three salts determined from powder X-ray diffraction data are shown to provide a direct rationalization of these observations.