Single-crystal neutron diffraction studies of hydrogen-bonded systems: Two recent examples from IPNS

Beginning with work in the 1950s at the first generation of research reactors, studies of hydrogen-bonded systems have been a prime application for single-crystal neutron diffraction. The range of systems studied was extended in the 1960s and 1970s, with the advent of high flux reactor sources, and beginning around 1980 studies at pulsed neutron sources have made increasingly important contributions. Recently at the Argonne Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS), working with collaborators, we completed two studies of hydrogen-bonded systems that will serve to illustrate topics of current interest. In the first study, on andrographolide, an active diterpenoid natural product, our neutron diffraction results definitively characterize the hydrogen-bonding interactions. The second IPNS study is on tetraacetylethane (TAE), a β-diketone enol system with a very short, strong intramolecular O–H⋯O hydrogen bond. At IPNS, we have determined the neutron crystal structure of TAE at five temperatures between 20 and 298 K to investigate changes in the structure with temperature and to probe for disorder. Despite the successes illustrated by the two examples presented here and by many other studies, at present applications of single-crystal neutron diffraction continue to be extremely flux limited and constrained by the requirement for mm-size crystals for many problems. These limitations are being addressed through the realization of powerful instruments at a new generation of pulsed neutron sources, including in the USA the TOPAZ and MaNDi single-crystal diffractometers that are under development at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS).