Methyl 2-(4-hydroxybenzoyl)benzoate

In the title compound, C15H12O4, the dihedral angle between the benzene rings is 64.0 (6)°. In the crystal, molecules are linked by O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming C(8) chains propagating in [10] and the packing is reinforced by weak C—H⋯O interactions.

In the title compound, C 15 H 12 O 4 , the dihedral angle between the benzene rings is 64.0 (6) . In the crystal, molecules are linked by O-HÁ Á ÁO hydrogen bonds, forming C(8) chains propagating in [101] and the packing is reinforced by weak C-HÁ Á ÁO interactions.

Experimental
MSS thanks the University of Mysore for the research facilities and HSY thanks R. L. Fine Chem, Bengaluru, India, for a gift sample of the title compound. JPJ acknowledges the NSF-MRI program (grant No. CHE1039027) for funds to purchase the X-ray diffractometer.
Supplementary data and figures for this paper are available from the IUCr electronic archives (Reference: HB5942).

Comment
The title compound is a starting material for the synthesis of pitofenone, which is an antispasmodic. More generally, benzophenone derivatives have many applications in organic chemistry (Sieroń et al., 2004). The crystal structures of some substituted benzophenones (Cox et al., 2008) and 2-amino-5-nitrophenyl 2-chlorophenyl ketone (Jasinski et al., 2009) have been reported. In view of the importance of the title compound, this paper reports the crystal structure of (I), C 15 H 12 O 4 .
In the title compound, C 15 H 12 O 4 , the dihedral angle between the mean planes of the two benzene rings is 64.0 (6)° ( Fig.   1). Bond distances are in normal ranges (Allen et al., 1987). Crystal packing is stabilized by O-H···O hydrogen bonds and weak C-H···O intermolecular interactions (Table 1, Fig. 2).

Experimental
The title compound was obtained as a gift sample from R. L. Fine Chem, Bengaluru, india. Colourless blocks were grown from methanol solution (430-433 K).

Refinement
The O-H atom was located by Fourier analysis and refined isotropically with DFIX = 0.84Å. All of the remaining H atoms were placed in their calculated positions and then refined using the riding model with Atom-H lengths of 0.95Å (CH) or 0.98Å (CH 3 ). Isotropic displacement parameters for these atoms were set to 1.18-1.20 (CH) or 1.51 (CH 3 ) times U eq of the parent atom.

Special details
Geometry. All esds (except the esd in the dihedral angle between two l.s. planes) are estimated using the full covariance matrix. The cell esds are taken into account individually in the estimation of esds in distances, angles and torsion angles; correlations between esds in cell parameters are only used when they are defined by crystal symmetry. An approximate (isotropic) treatment of cell esds is used for estimating esds involving l.s. planes.
Refinement. Refinement of F 2 against ALL reflections. The weighted R-factor wR and goodness of fit S are based on F 2 , conventional R-factors R are based on F, with F set to zero for negative F 2 . The threshold expression of F 2 > σ(F 2 ) is used only for calculating Rfactors(gt) etc. and is not relevant to the choice of reflections for refinement. R-factors based on F 2 are statistically about twice as large as those based on F, and R-factors based on ALL data will be even larger.