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Table 1
Experimental details.
higher-valent organoselenium halides provides an opportunity
for new structural discoveries within this class of compounds.
The sole reported polymorph of PhSeCl3 (Barnes et al.,
2005) exhibits a repeating polymeric motif where each
PhSeCl3 molecule bridges two others via a Cl atom. In this
article, we present a second polymorph of phenylselenium
trichloride featuring a dimeric motif grown under different
crystallization conditions, and examine its structural features.
Crystal data
Chemical formula
Mr
C6H5Cl3Se
262.41
Triclinic, P1
150
8.6245 (3), 9.5342 (4), 11.7229 (5)
78.332 (2), 77.789 (2), 66.341 (2)
Crystal system, space group
Temperature (K)
˚
a, b, c (A)
ꢀ, ꢁ, ꢄ (ꢀ)
3
˚
V (A )
855.50 (6)
4
Mo Kꢀ
5.24
Z
Radiation type
ꢅ (mmÀ1
Crystal size (mm)
)
2. Experimental
0.53 Â 0.52 Â 0.35
2.1. Synthesis and crystallization
Data collection
Diffractometer
Absorption correction
Reactions were conducted under an inert atmosphere of
argon using standard Schlenk techniques. Diethyl ether and
hexanes were dried using a solvent purification system, and
stored in PTFE-stoppered flasks over activated 4 A molecular
sieves. CDCl3 was dried by stirring over calcium hydride, then
distilled, degassed using four freeze–pump–thaw cycles and
Bruker APEXII CCD
Numerical (SADABS; Bruker,
2016)
0.456, 0.747
15455, 4426, 3470
Tmin, Tmax
˚
No. of measured, independent and
observed [I > 2ꢆ(I)] reflections
Rint
0.037
0.676
À1
˚
(sin ꢇ/ꢈ)max (A
)
˚
stored in a PTFE-stoppered flask over activated 4 A mol-
Refinement
ecular sieves. Benzeneseleninic acid was prepared according
to the reported procedure of Syper & Młochowski (1984) and
converted to benzeneseleninic anhydride by heating to 180 ꢀC
under dynamic vacuum for 3 h. The title compound, (I), was
prepared in an attempt to synthesize benzeneseleninyl
chloride [i.e. PhSe(O)Cl] via a reported procedure starting
with benzeneseleninic anhydride (Rosenfeld, 1976).
R[F2 > 2ꢆ(F2)], wR(F2), S
No. of reflections
No. of parameters
0.029, 0.051, 1.05
4426
182
H-atom parameters constrained
H-atom treatment
˚
À3
Áꢉmax, Áꢉmin (e A
)
0.46, À0.57
Computer programs: APEX3 (Bruker, 2016), SAINT (Bruker, 2016), SHELXT
(Sheldrick, 2015a), SHELXL (Sheldrick, 2015b) and OLEX2 (Dolomanov et al., 2009).
For the synthesis of phenylselenium trichloride, a 100 ml
Schlenk flask was charged with phenylseleninic anhydride
(1.010 g, 2.80 mmol) and diethyl ether (40 ml). The resulting
suspension was cooled to À78 ꢀC and thionyl chloride (3.7 ml,
50.7 mmol) was added dropwise over a period of 2 min. After
stirring for an additional 10 min, the mixture was allowed to
warm slowly to room temperature and stirred for 2 h, followed
by gentle heating to 35 ꢀC for 80 min. The volatiles were then
removed under vacuum and the crude product was washed
with hexanes (3 Â 20 ml). After drying under vacuum, a pale-
cream-coloured solid was obtained (yield: 1.405 g, 5.35 mmol,
2005) applied to all atoms. No symmetry restrictions were
applied during geometry optimizations. The nature of all
stationary points, and the Gibbs energy corrections, were
obtained by analysis of the vibrational frequencies.
3. Results and discussion
In an attempt to prepare benzeneseleninyl chloride [i.e.
PhSe(O)Cl], we conducted the reaction of benzeneseleninic
anhydride with excess thionyl chloride as described previously
(Rosenfeld, 1976). In our hands, this procedure afforded an
excellent yield of phenylselenium trichloride. It seems possible
that in the previously described work, adventitous moisture
partially hydrolyzed the PhSeCl3 product to PhSe(O)Cl, which
was the isolated species. This procedure therefore represents a
new route to PhSeCl3, which is more commonly prepared by
the chlorination of Ph2Se2 with SO2Cl2 (Engman, 1987). Other
methods are known, including the reaction of benzene-
seleninic acid with thionyl chloride (Stuhr-Hansen et al., 1996).
The structure of the title compound, (I), was confirmed by
X-ray studies of single crystals obtained from CDCl3/hexanes,
where a unique unit cell in the space group P1 was found. The
only previously characterized polymorph of PhSeCl3, also with
space group P1, was obtained by the slow cooling of a diethyl
ether solution of the compound. The presently determined
structure has a slightly larger unit-cell volume (by ca 3%)
compared to the known structure.
1
95%). H NMR (CDCl3): ꢂ 8.27–8.19 (m, 2H), 7.61–7.53 (m,
3H). Crystals suitable for X-ray diffraction were obtained
from a solution of the compound in CDCl3, layered with
hexanes and stored at À20 ꢀC.
2.2. Refinement
Crystal data, data collection and structure refinement
details are summarized in Table 1. Carbon-bound H atoms
˚
were placed in calculated positions (C—H = 0.95 A) and
refined according to a riding model, with Uiso(H) = 1.2Ueq(C).
No disorder or solvent molecules were noted in the difference
density map.
2.3. Computational studies
Closed-shell density functional theory (DFT) calculations
were performed using the GAMESS software package
(Schmidt et al., 1993). The dispersion-corrected functional
!B97X-D (Chai & Head-Gordon, 2008) was used, with the
triple-ꢃ quality basis set def2-TZVP (Weigend & Ahlrichs,
The unit cell contains two crystallographically independent
molecules arranged in an asymmetric dimeric fashion (Fig. 1)
via two SeÁ Á ÁCl bridging interactions [SeÁ Á ÁCl = 2.7975 (7) and
ꢁ
1472 Bloomfield and Ritch
A new polymorph of phenylselenium trichloride
Acta Cryst. (2019). C75, 1471–1474