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Ibuprofen is a well-established non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, inhibiting the prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase. One of the key features defining the ibuprofen structure is the doubly intermolecular O-HO[double bond, length as m-dash]C hydrogen bond in cyclic dimers as know from carboxylic acids and confirmed by X-ray analysis. Until now, there was neither information about the vaporization enthalpy of ibuprofen nor about how this thermal property is determined by the subtle balance between different types of intermolecular interaction. In this study we derive the vaporization enthalpy of ibuprofen from thermochemical experiments to be . We dissected the hydrogen bond energy, EHB = 45.0 kJ mol-1, exclusively from measured vaporization enthalpies of related aliphatic carboxylic acids, their homomorph methyl esters and alkyl acetates, respectively. This contribution from hydrogen bonding could be confirmed almost quantitatively from quantum chemical calculations of ibuprofen clusters, which also suggest dispersion interaction of similar order (Edisp = 47 kJ mol-1). Following the full analysis of the gas-vapor transition enthalpy, we studied the changing structural components from the solid to the liquid phase of ibuprofen by means of Attenuated Total Reflection Infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy. The cyclic dimers as observed in the X-ray patterns are essentially preserved in the liquid state just above the melting point. However, with increasing temperature the doubly hydrogen-bonded cyclic dimers are replaced by singly hydrogen-bonded linear dimers in the liquid ibuprofen. The transfer enthalpy from the temperature-dependent equilibria of both dimers as obtained from the IR intensity ratios of the vibrational bands quantifies for the first time the energy of the released, single hydrogen bond to be EHB = 21.0 kJ mol-1. Overall, we show that a combination of thermodynamics, infrared spectroscopy and quantum chemistry provides quantification and detailed understanding of structure and molecular interaction in ibuprofen and related compounds.

The five fundamental units of the genetic code: uracil (U), thymine (T), cytosine (C), adenine (A) and guanine (G) are known for extremely low vapor pressure and low thermal stability at elevated temperatures. Therefore, application of conventional techniques for the determination of sublimation enthalpies and vapor pressures fails to provide accurate results. Recently, a Fast Scanning Calorimetry method (FSC) for vapor pressure determination was developed for investigation of extremely low volatile, as well as for thermally unstable molecular and ionic molecules. This success has encouraged application of the FSC method for determination of vapor pressures and sublimation enthalpies of the five nucleobases, where available literature data are in disarray. The thermodynamic data of the nucleobases available in the literature were collected, evaluated, and combined with our experimental results to reconcile available experimental data. The set of evaluated thermochemical data on the five nucleobases was recommended as the benchmark properties for these thermally labile compounds.

Walden's Rule is an empirical observation of an invariant fusion entropy during fusion of non-associated organic compounds. For the five nucleobases, adenine, thymine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil, surprisingly high fusion temperatures and enthalpies have been measured using a specially developed fast scanning calorimetry method that prevents decomposition. Even when nucleobases admittedly possess very high fusion temperatures, e.g. the value of 862 K measured for guanine really exceeds all expectations of the feasible dimension of the fusion temperature for such a relatively small and simple organic molecule. Hirshfeld surface analysis has been applied in order to find out an explanation for such extremely unusual thermal behavior of nucleobases. We rationalized the observed trends in terms of fusion entropy (Walden's constant = 56.5 J K -1 mol -1 ) as the entropic penalty of fusion not only for "non-associated", as proposed by Walden in 1908, but also for "ideal associated" systems like nucleobases.

This work presents an approach that expresses the Michaelis constant KaM and the equilibrium constant Kth of an enzymatic peptide hydrolysis based on thermodynamic activities instead of concentrations. This provides KaM and Kth values that are independent of any co-solvent. To this end, the hydrolysis reaction of N-succinyl-l-phenylalanine-p-nitroanilide catalysed by the enzyme α-chymotrypsin was studied in pure buffer and in the presence of the co-solvents dimethyl sulfoxide, trimethylamine-N-oxide, urea, and two salts. A strong influence of the co-solvents on the measured Michaelis constant (KM) and equilibrium constant (Kx) was observed, which was found to be caused by molecular interactions expressed as activity coefficients. Substrate and product activity coefficients were used to calculate the activity-based values KaM and Kth for the co-solvent free reaction. Based on these constants, the co-solvent effect on KM and Kx was predicted in almost quantitative agreement with the experimental data. The approach presented here does not only reveal the importance of understanding the thermodynamic non-ideality of reactions taking place in biological solutions and in many technological applications, it also provides a framework for interpreting and quantifying the multifaceted co-solvent effects on enzyme-catalysed reactions that are known and have been observed experimentally for a long time.

The standard molar enthalpies of formation in the gaseous state of a series of nitrophenols, 2-nitrophenol, 3-nitrophenol, 4-nitrophenol, 5-methyl-2-nitrophenol, 2-methyl-5-nitrophenol, and 3-methyl-4-nitrophenol, have been obtained from combustion calorimetry and results from the temperature dependence of the vapor pressure measured by the transpiration method. To verify the experimental data, ab initio calculations of all compounds have been performed using MP, DFT, and G3 methods. Enthalpies of formation derived from the G3 methods are in a good agreement with the experimental results. The quantitative analysis of ortho, meta, and para pairwise-substituent effects in nitrophenols has been performed, and the strength of intramolecular hydrogen bonding in o-nitrophenol has been derived from thermochemical results and compared with those obtained from spectroscopic experiments and ab initio calculations. The new results help to resolve uncertainties in the available thermochemical data on extended series of nitrophenols.