Steric “attraction”: not by dispersion alone

• Ganna Gryn’ova and
• Clémence Corminboeuf

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2018, 14, 1482–1490, doi:10.3762/bjoc.14.125

• stabilizing contribution from dispersion forces that in many systems turns the ‘steric repulsion’ into a ‘steric attraction’. In addition to London dispersion, such systems benefit from electrostatic stabilization, which arises from a short-range effect of charge penetration and gets bigger with increasing

• recognized in aliphatic systems compared to London dispersion, and are therefore likely to have implications for the development of force fields and methods for crystal structure prediction. Keywords: charge penetration; dispersion; hydrocarbon; non-covalent interactions; steric attraction; Introduction In

• dimers, where the interaction occurs via the CH···HC and CH···C contacts (Figure 1C) [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. While London dispersion is deservedly paraded as the champion of ‘steric attraction’ in bulky hydrocarbons, several studies have recently pointed to the somewhat less expected