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Free keywords:
adiponitrile; polyamide Nylon 66; crystal structure; synthetic intermediate; hexanedinitrile; in situ cryocrystallography
Abstract:
Adiponitrile, C6H8N2, is a key intermediate in the synthesis of the polyamide
Nylon 66 and is produced industrially on a large scale. We have determined the
crystal and molecular structure of adiponitrile by single-crystal X-ray analysis at 100 K, a suitable crystal (m.p. 275 K) having been grown from the melt at low
temperature. The compound crystallizes in the monoclinic space group
P21/c with Z = 2. In the crystal structure, the molecule adopts an exact Ci-symmetric
gauche–anti–gauche conformation of the C—C—C—C skeleton about an
inversion centre. The molecules are densely packed, with short intermolecular
contacts between the α-H and nitrile N atoms.
