“…18-Crown-6 normally adopts a conformation of approximate D3a symmetry both in cationic complexes (e.g. Dunitz, Dobler, Seller & Phizackerley, 1974;Nagano, 1979) and when hydrogen bonding to guest species (Nagano, Kobayashi & Sasaki, 1978;Goldberg, 1975;Kaufmann et al, 1977;Hilgenfeld & Saenger, 1981) including cationcoordinated water (Kn6chel, Kopf, Oehler & Rudolph, 1978b). With dihydrated uranyl nitrate (Bombieri, de Paoli & Immirzi, 1978) or benzenesulphonamide (Kn6chel et al, 1978a), however, this symmetry with exclusively anti-gauche-anti units of alternating signs is broken in favour of an elongated conformation g+g+aag-aag-ag-g-aag+aag+a which is related to that of the uncomplexed ether (Maverick, Seller, Schweizer & Dunitz, 1980).…”