The tautomeric and conformational properties of malonamic acid methyl ester, NH
2C(O)-CH
2-C(O)OCH
3,have been investigated by means of gas-phase electron diffraction (GED) and quantum chemical calculations(HF, B3LYP, and MP2 approximations with different basis sets up to 6-311++G(3df,pd)). Both quantumchemistry and GED at 360(8) K result in the existence of a single diketo conformer in the gas phase. Accordingto GED refinement, this conformer possesses an (ac, sc) conformation with dihedral angles C-C-C(NH
2)=O of 140.3(3.0)
![](/images/entities/deg.gif)
and C-C-C(OCH
3)=O of 31.1(7.2)
![](/images/entities/deg.gif)
. The experimental geometric parameters are reproducedvery closely by MP2 and B3LYP methods with large basis sets.