Conformational analysis of asymmetric ethanes : Extraction of acyclic conformational ligand constants from time-averaged geminal fluorine anisochronism

The syntheses and ambient-temperature ¹⁹F NMR data are reported for 27 asymmetric ethanes of the general formula RCF₂CXYZ, including a complete series of 10 compounds with R = Cl and all combinations of the 5 ligands H, F, Cl, Br and Ph. Within the theoretical framework of a previously proposed heuristic mathematical model the geminal ¹⁹F chemical shift differences are fitted to chirality functions X = ?R (λx - λy) (λy - λz) (λz - λx) to yield acyclic conformational ligand constants λ and substituent parameters ?. It is demonstrated that the λ constants already reported for an analogous series of 10 compounds with R = Br are transferable to the Cl series with ?_Cl = 0.63 ± 0.07. Crude first approximations are also reported for the normalised (according to ?_Br = 1) ligand constants λ_Ch3, λ_OH, λ_OCH3 and λ₁ and for the substituent parameter λ_H. It is argued that the λ values thus ext play a role in the conformational analysis of asymmetric ethanes that is conceptually analogous to the conformational free energies in monosubstituted cyclohexanes.