Crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis and computational study of 2-chloro-N-[4-(methylsulfanyl)phenyl]acetamide

Abstract

In the title compound, C9H10ClNOS, the amide functional group –C(=O)NH– adopts a trans conformation with the four atoms nearly coplanar. This conformation promotes the formation of a C(4) hydrogen-bonded chain propagating along the [010] direction. The central part of the molecule, including the six-membered ring, the S and N atoms, is fairly planar (r.m.s. deviation of 0.014). The terminal methyl group and the C(=O)CH2 group are slightly deviating out-of-plane while the terminal Cl atom is almost in-plane. Hirshfeld surface analysis of the title compound suggests that the most significant contacts in the crystal are H...H, H...Cl/Cl...H, H...C/C...H, H...O/O...H and H...S/S...H. π–π interactions between inversion-related molecules also contribute to the crystal packing. DFT calculations have been performed to optimize the structure of the title compound using the CAM-B3LYP functional and the 6–311 G(d,p) basis set. The theoretical absorption spectrum of the title compound was calculated using the TD–DFT method. The analysis of frontier orbitals revealed that the π–π* electronic transition was the major contributor to the absorption peak in the electronic spectrum.

Keywords

• 4-methylthioaniline
• chloroacetyl chloride
• hydrogen bonds
• π–π interactions
• crystal structure