Collect. Czech. Chem. Commun. 1981, 46, 1646-1657

Structure and vibrational spectra of methyl benzoate and dimethyl terephthalate

Pavel Sedláčeka, Jan Štokrb and Bohdan Schneiderb

a Chemopetrol, Silon, 391 11 Plana nad Luznici
b Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 162 06 Prague 6


Infrared and Raman spectra of the crystalline forms and of the liquid state of acetophenone, methylbenzoate and dimethyl terephthalate were measured. From these measurements it was found that acetophenone in the liquid state is present in a single conformational form, and that methyl benzoate in the liquid state contains, in addition to the major conformer with a planar structure and trans form of the ester group, also a minor conformer of different geometrical structure. Dimethyl terephthalate in the melt contains approximately equal populations of the conformers with the mutual trans and cis orientation of the two ester groups. For all the observed structures, the conformationally sensitive bands were assigned.