The chiral trimer and a metastable chiral dimer of achiral hexafluoroisopropanol: A multi‐messenger study

1,1,1,3,3,3‐hexafluoro‐propan‐2‐ol aggregates preferentially into an achiral dimer of achiral monomers, but the trimer is found to prefer three metastable chiral monomer units arranged into a strained OH‐O hydrogen‐bonded ring which is reinforced by secondary CH‐FC interactions. This is shown by a combination of infrared, microwave and Raman spectroscopy in supersonic jet expansions and supported by high level quantum chemical calculations. It involves an activation of the monomers by >15 kJ mol‐1, clearly driven by the much stronger hydrogen bond interaction available to the gauche and even more to the cis monomer units.

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