A spectrochemometric approach to tautomerism and hydrogen-bonding in 3-acyltetronic acids

3-Acyltetronic acids bearing different 3- and 5-substituents have been examined focussing on tautomerism and inter- and intramolecular hydrogen-bonding properties of these β,β′-tricarbonyl compounds in solution as well as in the solid state. Spectroscopic methods like NMR, IR, Raman-spectroscopy as well as X-ray diffractometry and MAS-NMR for the solid state have been applied. In a solution of CDCl3, the acids exist as cis/trans pair both involving the 3-acyl group in a ratio 60/40. The pair also involving the carbonyl group at C-4 is tautomeric and the most abundant, whereas the other isomer only shows one form with an exo-cyclic double bond. NMR and IR measurements are in agreement. In the solid state, only one of the four possible tautomers is found. DFT-calculations on the B3LYP/6-31G** level helped to verify the assignment of the IR- and NMR-spectra and yielded an estimation of the relative thermodynamic stabilities of the tautomers of several 3-acyltetronic acids. Low temperature NMR experiments gave an insight into the equilibria. Deuterium isotope effects on the 13C NMR chemical shifts have been observed for 5,5-dimethyl 3-pivaloyltetronic acid at low temperature in order to examine the fast internal equilibria.