The
influence of the heteroatoms in the conformational, energetic,
and reactivity trends exhibited by morpholine and thiomorpholine isosteres
was obtained from computational and experimental thermochemical studies.
For those purposes, the gas-phase standard (p°
= 0.1 MPa) molar enthalpies of formation of the compounds, at T = 298.15 K, were determined from the experimental values
of the standard molar enthalpies of formation, in the liquid phase,
and of the standard molar enthalpies of vaporization, obtained by
calorimetric techniques, and also from composite G3(MP2)//B3LYP calculations
making use of appropriate working reactions. A very good agreement
was found between the calculated and the experimental gas-phase enthalpies
of formation. The computational study was further extended to the
calculation of other gas-phase thermodynamic properties of these compounds,
namely, the N–H or C–H bond dissociation enthalpies,
gas-phase acidities and basicities, proton affinities and adiabatic
ionization enthalpies, and the energies and structures of the conformational
stereoisomers of morpholine and thiomorpholine.