Inter-enantiomer conversion dynamics and Johari–Goldstein relaxation of benzophenones

We employ temperature- and pressure-dependent dielectric spectroscopy, as well as differential scanning calorimetry, to characterize benzophenone and the singly-substituted ortho-bromobenzophenone derivative in the liquid and glass states, and analyze the results in terms of the molecular conformations reported for these molecules. Despite the significantly higher mass of the brominated derivative, its dynamic and calorimetric glass transition temperatures are only ten degrees higher than those of benzophenone. The kinetic fragility index of the halogenated molecule is lower than that of the parent compound, and is found to decrease with increasing pressure. By a detailed analysis of the dielectric loss spectra, we provide evidence for the existence of a Johari–Goldstein (JG) relaxation in both compounds, thus settling the controversy concerning the possible lack of a JG process in benzophenone and confirming the universality of this dielectric loss feature in molecular glass-formers. Both compounds also display an intramolecular relaxation, whose characteristic timescale appears to be correlated with that of the cooperative structural relaxation associated with the glass transition. The limited molecular flexibility of ortho-bromobenzophenone allows identifying the intramolecular relaxation as the inter-enantiomeric conversion between two isoenergetic conformers of opposite chirality, which only differ in the sign of the angle between the brominated aryl ring and the coplanar phenyl-ketone subunit. The observation by dielectric spectroscopy of a similar relaxation also in liquid benzophenone indicates that the inter-enantiomer conversion between the two isoenergetic helicoidal ground-state conformers of opposite chirality occurs via a transition state characterized by a coplanar phenyl-ketone moiety.