Intramolecular hydrogen bonds and conformations of the 1,4-butanediol molecule

IR and Raman spectra of 1,4-butanediol (BD) versus variations in the medium (CCl4, CH3CN), concentration, temperature, and phase state were obtained. The observed changes attest to the conformational variety of BD molecules under the experimental conditions. On the basis of the analysis of the v(OH) region it is concluded that both in the gas phase and in CCl4 solution conformers of BD with free OH groups coexist with conformers with O-H...O intramolecular hydrogen bonds. The difference in enthalpies, ΔH, for the groups of conformers with and without intramolecular hydrogen bonds was found from the temperature dependence of the v(OH)free and v(OH)intra band intensities. The structures and energies for 70 possible spectrally and energetically distinguishable conformers of BD that do not take into account intramolecular hydrogen bonds were calculated by molecular mechanics with account of electron lone pairs of oxygen atoms. Using the experimental values of ΔH and the calculated relative conformer energies,E, the intramolecular hydrogen bond energyEintra= 3.7 kcal mol−1 was found.