Crystalline peroxosolvates: Nature of the coformer, hydrogen-bonded networks and clusters, intermolecular interactions

Despite the technological importance of urea perhydrate (percarbamide) and sodium percarbonate, and the growing technological attention to solid forms of peroxide, fewer than 45 peroxosolvates were known by 2000. However, recent advances in X-ray diffractometers more than tripled the number of structurally characterized peroxosolvates over the last 20 years, and even more so, allowed energetic interpretation and gleaning deeper insight into peroxosolvate stability. To date, 134 crystalline peroxosolvates have been structurally resolved providing sufficient insight to justify a first review article on the subject. In the first chapter of the review, a comprehensive analysis of the structural databases is carried out revealing the nature of the co-former in crystalline peroxosolvates. In the majority of cases, the coformers can be classified into three groups: (1) salts of inorganic and carboxylic acids; (2) amino acids, peptides, and related zwitterions; and (3) molecular compounds with a lone electron pair on nitrogen and/or oxygen atoms. The second chapter of the review is devoted to H-bonding in peroxosolvates. The database search and energy statistics revealed the importance of intermolecular hydrogen bonds (H-bonds) which play a structure-directing role in the considered crystals. H₂O₂ always forms two H-bonds as a proton donor, the energy of which is higher than the energy of analogous H-bonds existing in isostructural crystalline hydrates. This phenomenon is due to the higher acidity of H₂O₂ compared to water and the conformational mobility of H₂O₂. The dihedral angle H-O-O-H varies from 20 to 180^◦ in crystalline peroxosolvates. As a result, infinite H-bonded 1D chain clusters are formed, consisting of H₂O₂ molecules, H₂O₂ and water molecules, and H₂O₂ and halogen anions. H₂O₂ can form up to four H-bonds as a proton acceptor. The third chapter of the review is devoted to energetic computations and in particular density functional theory with periodic boundary conditions. The approaches are considered in detail, allowing one to obtain the H-bond energies in crystals. DFT computations provide deeper insight into the stability of peroxosolvates and explain why percarbamide and sodium percarbonate are stable to H₂O₂/H₂O isomorphic transformations. The review ends with a description of the main modern trends in the synthesis of crystalline peroxosolvates, in particular, the production of peroxosolvates of high-energy compounds and mixed pharmaceutical forms with antiseptic and analgesic effects.