Chiral self-recognition: Direct spectroscopic detection of the homochiral and heterochiral dimers of propylene oxide in the gas phase

In this report, we describe rotational spectroscopic and high-level ab initio studies of the 1:1 chiral molecular adduct of propylene oxide dimer. The complexes are bound by weak secondary hydrogen bonds, that is, the O-epoxy center dot center dot center dot H-C noncovalent interactions. Six homochiral and six heterochiral conformers were predicted to be the most stable configurations where each monomer acts as a proton acceptor and a donor simultaneously, forming two six- or five-membered intermolecular hydrogen-bonded rings. Rotational spectra of six, that is, three homochiral and heterochiral conformer pairs, out of the eight conformers that were predicted to have sufficiently large permanent electric dipole moments were measured and analyzed. The relative conformational stability order and the signs of the chiral recognition energies of the six conformers were determined experimentally and were compared to the ab initio computational results. The experimental observations and the ab initio calculations suggest that the concerted effort of these weak secondary hydrogen bonds can successfully lock the subunits in a particular orientation and that the overall binding strength is comparable to a classic hydrogen bond.