Crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis and DFT calculations of (E)-3-[1-(2-hy-droxy-phenyl-anilino)ethyl-idene]-6-methyl-pyran-2,4-dione

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, C14H13NO4, contains three independent mol-ecules, which differ slightly in conformation. Each contains an intra-molecular N-H⋯O hydrogen bond. In the crystal, O-H⋯O hydrogen bonds form chains of mol-ecules, which are linked into corrugated sheets parallel to (03) plane by C-H⋯O hydrogen bonds together with π inter-actions between the carbonyl groups and the 2-hy-droxy-phenyl rings. The layers are linked by further C-H⋯O hydrogen bonds. The Hirshfeld surface analysis of the crystal structure indicates that the most important contributions for the crystal packing are from H⋯H (49.0%), H⋯O/O⋯H (28.3%) and H⋯C/C⋯H (10.9%) inter-actions. van der Waals inter-actions are the dominant inter-actions in the crystal packing. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) optimized structures at the B3LYP/ 6-311 G(d,p) level are compared with the experimentally determined mol-ecular structure in the solid state. The HOMO-LUMO behavior was elucidated to determine the energy gap of 4.53 eV.

Ring-Opening Polymerization of ε-Caprolactone and Styrene Oxide-CO2 Coupling Reactions Catalyzed by Chelated Dehydroacetic Acid-Imine Aluminum Complexes

A series of chelated dehydroacetic acid-imine-based ligands L1H~L4H was synthesized by reacting dehydroacetic acid with 2-t-butylaniline, (S)-1-phenyl-ethylamine, 4-methoxylbenzylamine, and 2-(aminoethyl)pyridine, respectively, in moderate yields. Ligands L1H~L4H reacted with AlMe3 in toluene to afford corresponding compounds AlMe2L1 (1), AlMe2L2 (2), AlMe2L3 (3), and AlMe2L4 (4). All the ligands and aluminum compounds were characterized by IR spectra, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy. Additionally, the ligands L1H~L4H and corresponding aluminum derivatives 1, 3, and 4 were characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffractometry. The catalytic activities using these aluminum compounds as catalysts for the ε-caprolactone ring-opening polymerization (ROP) and styrene oxide-CO2 coupling reactions were studied. The results show that increases in the reaction temperature and selective solvent intensify the conversions of ε-caprolactone to polycaprolactone. Regarding the coupling reactions of styrene oxide and CO2, the conversion rate is over 90% for a period of 12 h at 90 °C. This strategy dispenses the origination of cyclic styrene carbonates, which is an appealing concern because of the transformation of CO2 into an inexpensive, renewable and easy excess carbon feedstock.