Isotopic Consequences of Host–Guest Interactions; Noncovalent Chlorine Isotope Effects

Although weak intermolecular interactions are the essence of most processes of key importance in medicine, industry, environment, and life cycles, their characterization is still not sufficient. Enzymatic dehalogenations that involve chloride anion interaction within a host-guest framework is one of the many examples. Recently published experimental results on host-guest systems provided us with models suitable to assess isotopic consequences of these noncovalent interactions. Herein, we report the influence of environmental and structural variations on chlorine isotope effects. We show that these effects, although small, may obscure mechanistic interpretations, as well as analytical protocols of dehalogenation processes.