A high-resolution microwave study of the conformations of butan-2-ol in a supersonic expansion

The microwave Fourier transform spectrum of the chiral, secondary alcohol butan-2-ol has been recorded in the range 6-18 GHz. The spectrum is relatively dense, due to the large number of species formed in the supersonic expansion used. Three conformational isomers of the butan-2-ol molecule have been identified and their spectra assigned using a semirigid, asymmetric-rotor model. They correspond to the three configurations that the central C-C bond can adopt. The basis of our assignment is a series of nb initio calculations, which have been performed using the GAUSSIAN 94 package, good agreement being observed between theoretical and experimental values of the rotational constants. First-order centrifugal distortion coefficients have also been extracted. It has proven possible, by examination of the relative strengths of a-, b-, and c-type transitions, to infer some further information about the position of the hydroxyl hydrogen atom within each conformer. (C) 2001 Academic Press.