Vibrational Circular Dichroism study of chiral food additives: γ-valero- and γ-caprolactone

November 30, 2020

Title

Vibrational Circular Dichroism study of chiral food additives: γ-valero- and γ-caprolactone

Author

M.Sánchez Valera, R.Casas Jaraíces, M.Montejo, P.G.Rodríguez Ortega

Year

2021

Journal

Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy Volume 247, 15 February 2021, 119140

Abstract

γ-valerolactone and γ-caprolactone are commonly used as flavor additives in the food industry. In the present work we fully explore the molecular structure and conformational distribution of enantiopure γ-valerolactone and γ-caprolactone in solution state by using Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) spectroscopy assisted by quantum chemical calculations. In order to establish the most accurate DFT method for this type of samples a set of methods and basis sets have been implemented and their performances have been compared. Subsequently, we have performed a complete vibrational assignment, which allowed to detect certain key vibrational features related to specific solution-state conformational speciation. In spite of the rigidity of the samples being studied, our results point to the incidence of conformational mixture in CCl4 solution in both samples.

Instrument

VCD, FVS-6000

Keywords

VCD, FTIR, Lactones, DFT