Study on conformation interconversion of 3-alkyl-4-acetyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-1,4-benzoxazines from dynamic NMR experiments and ab initio density functional calculations

Variable-temperature NMR experiments and ab initio density functional calculations were carried out to investigate the conformation interconversion of novel chiral 3-alkyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[1,4]oxazine derivatives. With CDCl3 as the solvent, the coalescence temperatures of H2, H3, H11, and H19 of product 1 are about 289, 304, 292, and 316 K, with the corresponding activation free energies at 58.0 +/- 6.7, 60.9 +/- 7.1, 58.3 +/- 6.8, and 59.6 +/- 6.9 kJ.mol(-1), respectively. When dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO-d6) was used as the solvent, 1H and 13C NMR signals were completely assigned at 375 K. The effects of solvent and temperature were investigated through a polarizable continuum model. At each theoretical level (MP2 or B3LYP), the changing tendencies of the calculated activation free energies and interconversion rates agree well with those of the NMR results. In addition, the interconversion rate at each specified temperature was calculated to be about 1.5 times faster in DMSO-d6 than in CDCl3. Accordingly, we failed to observe the coalescence phenomena of H3 and H19 in DMSO-d6 by NMR measurements from 296 to 375 K. The substitution effect at the R1-R5 positions was considered using density functional calculations, with the activation barriers decreasing as follows: product 6 > 3 > 1 > 7 > 2. This sequence is consistent with that of the reaction heats, except for product 7, implying that the interconversion processes may be thermodynamically controlled. Surprisingly, the substituted groups near the acetyl group in product 2 and 7 do not elevate the activation barrier but, instead, lower it somewhat, with the possible reasons for this provided in the paper.