Crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis and DFT study of 2-(2-isopropyl-5-methyl-cyclo-hex-yloxy)-2-oxoethyl benzoate.

The title menthol-derived ester, C19H26O4, was synthesized by chloro-acetyl-ation of menthol followed by reaction with sodium benzoate. It crystallizes in the Sohncke space group P21 with one mol-ecule in the asymmetric unit. The cyclo-hexane ring adopts a chair conformation, and the benzoate fragment is essentially planar. The oxoethyl bridge shows a gauche conformation about the O-CH2 bond and an anti conformation about the CH2-C bond. In the crystal, the packing is mainly consolidated by a weak C-H⋯O contact linking mol-ecules into chains parallel to [100]. Hirshfeld surface analysis indicates that H⋯H contacts make the largest contribution to the crystal cohesion, followed by O⋯H/H⋯O and C⋯H/H⋯C contacts, consistent with the hydro-phobic menthyl entity. DFT calculations show reasonable agreement between the refined and optimized structures. Frontier-orbital and electrostatic-potential analyses identify the benzoate ester and carbonyl oxygen atoms as the main electronically active regions.