Research on the differences between 2-(2-Chlorophenyl)benzimidazole and 2-(4-Chlorophenyl)benzimidazole based on terahertz time domain spectroscopy

Due to wide variety of biological and pharmacological activities of benzimidazole derivatives, the differences between 2-(2-Chlorophenyl)benzimidazole and 2-(4-Chlorophenyl) benzimidazole were researched by employing terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and density functional theory systematically. Although the only difference between their molecular configurations is the arrangement of chlorine atom on chlorophenyl ring, there are distinctive differences in their fingerprint spectra in the range of 0.2–2.5 THz, such as amount, amplitude, and frequency position of absorption peaks. The validity of these results was confirmed by the theoretical results simulated by using density functional theory. The possible reasons of these differences originate from the different van der Waals forces and the different dihedral angles of the molecules within crystal cell. These results indicate the importance of this spectral range as a conformational fingerprint region where even minor changes in the molecular configuration lead to major differences in its THz absorption.