title: Isolation of a chiral anthracene cation radical: X-ray crystallography and computational interrogation of its racemization.
abstract: Chiral cation-radical salts hold significant promise as charge-transfer materials, chiroptical switches, and electron-transfer catalysts for enantioselective synthesis. Herein we demonstrate that the readily-available chiral 9,10-diphenyleanthracene derivative (i.e.SANT) forms a robust cation radical, whose structure was elucidated by X-ray crystallography and DFT calculations. WhileSANT was observed to racemize on a timescale (t1/2) of 1.1 hours, a computational conformational search and kinetic analysis of the racemization pathway led us to identify a simple methyl substitutedSANT derivative, which does not racemize (racemization t1/21013-1017years).
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA. rajendra.rathore@marquette.edu.
authors.forename: Maxim V
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6171-9524
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Ivanov
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA. rajendra.rathore@marquette.edu.
authors.forename: Khushabu
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thakur
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA. rajendra.rathore@marquette.edu.
authors.forename: Anshul
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7215-316X
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bhatnagar
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA. rajendra.rathore@marquette.edu.
authors.forename: Rajendra
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7387-7936
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rathore