Conformational study of eugenol by density functional theory method and matrix-isolation infrared spectroscopy

The B3LYP/6-311++G(2d,2p) study of the potential energy surface of eugenol (4-allyl-2-methoxyphenol, 2-methoxy-4-pro-2-emyl-phenol) was performed with the aim of finding all possible conformers of the molecule. Twelve conformers were found belonging to one of three groups differing in the relative orientation of the OH and OCH3 Moieties: SA (syn-anti), AA (antianti) and AG (antigauche). The lowest-energy conformers of eugenol (SAA+, SAA- and SAS) stabilized by the intramolecular hydrogen bond differ only in the arrangement of the allyl group with respect to the aromatic ring. The calculated abundance of all three SA species equals 99.8% whereas the remaining AA and AG show the negligible population of 0.2%. In consonance with theoretical predictions, only syn-anti conformers are present in the low temperature matrices studied. The presented FTIR results allow, for the first time, unequivocal identification and spectral characterization of three SA conformers of the eugenol molecule isolated in solid argon and xenon. The performed studies reveal that conformational cooling (upon increasing the substrate temperature during deposition) takes place in the studied matrices and that the less stable SAA- and SAS species convert into SAA+. This observation appears to be consistent with the theoretically predicted energy barriers of 6.70 and 10.45 kJ/mol for the SAA- -> SAA+ and SAS -> SAA+ interconversions which are low enough to be surpassed during deposition at higher temperatures.