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The Crystal Structure of 5‐Aminouracil and the Ambiguity of Alternative Polymorphs
Author(s) -
Watts Taylor A.,
Price Louise S.,
Price Sarah L.,
Niederberger Sara M.,
Bertke Jeffery A.,
Swift Jennifer A.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
israel journal of chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.908
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1869-5868
pISSN - 0021-2148
DOI - 10.1002/ijch.202100062
Subject(s) - chemistry , powder diffraction , crystallography , raman spectroscopy , crystal structure , crystallization , microcrystalline , polymorphism (computer science) , diffraction , crystal (programming language) , organic chemistry , optics , physics , biochemistry , programming language , computer science , genotype , gene
The nucleobase derivative 5‐aminouracil (AUr, C 4 H 5 N 3 O 2 ) is of interest for its biological activity, yet the solid state structure of this compound has remained elusive owing to its propensity to crystallize as aggregates of microcrystalline particles. Here we report the first single‐crystal structure of AUr determined from synchrotron x‐ray diffraction data. An early crystal structure prediction effort, which assumed that AUr was rigid in the isolated molecule optimized conformation, provided several poor matches to the simulated PXRD pattern. Revisiting these crystal structures, by periodic electronic level modelling (PBE‐TS optimization) gave more realistic relative lattice energies, but a good match to the experimental powder pattern required using the experimental cell parameters. PXRD and Raman spectroscopy suggest that phase impurities may be present in the bulk crystallization product, though the identity of alternative polymorphs could not be confirmed on the basis of the data available.