Pure fluorocarbonyl trifluoromethanesulfonate, FC(O)OSO
2CF
3, is prepared in about 70% yield by the ambient-temperature reaction between FC(O)SCl and AgCF
3SO
3. The geometric structure and conformational properties ofthe gaseous molecule ha
ve been studied by gas electron diffraction (GED),
vibrational spectroscopy [IR(gas),IR(matrix), and Raman(liquid)] and quantum chemical calculations (HF, MP2, and B3LYP with 6-311G* basis sets);in addition, the solid-state structure has been determined by X-ray crystallography. FC(O)OSO
2CF
3 exists in thegas phase as a mixture of trans [FC(O) group trans with respect to the CF
3 group] and gauche conformers withthe trans form pre
vailing [67(8)% from GED and 59(5)% from IR(matrix) measurements]. In both conformers theC=O bond of the FC(O) group is oriented synperiplanar with respect to the S-O single bond. The experimentalfree energy difference between the two forms,
G = 0.49(13) kcal mol
-1 (GED) and 0.22(12) kcal mol
-1 (IR),is slightly smaller than the calculated
value (0.74-0.94 kcal mol
-1). The crystalline solid at 150 K [monoclinic,
P2
1/
c,
a = 10.983(1) Å,
b = 6.4613(6) Å,
c = 8.8508(8) Å,
= 104.786(2)
] consists exclusi
vely of the transconformer.