Molecular orbital and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance studies of the inversion potentials of thianthrene and thioxanthene

The inversion potentials, obtained from STO-3G, STO-3G(*), 3-21G, 3-21G(*), and 4-31G basis sets, are reported for thianthrene and thioxanthene, molecules in which both or only one of the methylene groups have been replaced by sulfur in 9,10-dihydroanthracene. Comparison with the available experimental data suggests that the split-valence bases lead to an overestimate, possibly by about 10 kJ/mol, of the inversion barrier in the crystal, whereas the STO-3G and STO-3G* basis sets underestimate this barrier. It appears that the inversion barrier for thianthrene is much lower in solution than in the crystal. The long-range coupling constants between the methylene and ring protons for thioxanthene in solution are consistent with an inversion barrier somewhat smaller than those obtained with the split-valence bases but rather larger than those predicted with the STO-3G basis set. The bond lengths and angles in the equilibrium structures of the two molecules, as computed with the 3-21G(*) basis, agree reasonably well with those in their crystals, except that the theoretical folding angles are smaller than measured. These discrepancies become less marked when expectation values are calculated from the theoretical inversion potentials at finite temperatures. Key words: MO calculations, inversion potentials of thianthrene and thioxanthene; 1H NMR, thioxanthene; spin–spin coupling constants, long range, in thioxanthene.