5-Ethyl-3-(2-fluorophenylsulfonyl)-2-methyl-1-benzofuran

In the title compound, C17H15FO3S, the 2-fluorophenyl ring makes a dihedral angle of 89.12 (8)° with the mean plane of the benzofuran fragment. In the crystal, molecules are linked by weak C—H⋯O and C—H⋯π interactions.

In the title compound, C 17 H 15 FO 3 S, the 2-fluorophenyl ring makes a dihedral angle of 89.12 (8) with the mean plane of the benzofuran fragment. In the crystal, molecules are linked by weak C-HÁ Á ÁO and C-HÁ Á Á interactions.

Related literature
For background information and the crystal structures of related compounds, see: Choi et al. (2010Choi et al. ( , 2011 Table 1 Hydrogen-bond geometry (Å , ).
supplementary materials Acta Cryst. (2012). E68, o2838 [doi:10.1107/S1600536812036872] The title compound crystallizes as the non-centrosymmetric space group C c in spite of having no asymmetric C atoms.

5-Ethyl
In the title molecule ( Fig. 1), the benzofuran unit is essentially planar, with a mean deviation of 0.016 (2) Å from the least-squares plane defined by the nine constituent atoms. The dihedral angle between the 2-fluorophenyl ring and the mean plane of the benzofuran fragment is 89.12 (8)°. In the crystal structure ( Fig. 2), molecules are connected by weak C -H···O and C-H···π interactions (Table 1, Cg is the centroid of the C12-C17 2-fluorophenyl ring).

Experimental
3-Chloroperoxybenzoic acid (77%, 515 mg, 2.3 mmol) was added in small portions to a stirred solution of 5-ethyl-3-(2fluorophenylsulfanyl)-2-methyl-1-benzofuran (315 mg, 1.1 mmol) in dichloromethane (50 mL) at 273 K. After being stirred at room temperature for 10h, the mixture was washed with saturated sodium bicarbonate solution and the organic layer was separated, dried over magnesium sulfate, filtered and concentrated at reduced pressure. The residue was purified by column chromatography (benzene) to afford the title compound as a colorless solid [yield 72%, m.p. 410-411 K; R f = 0.61 (benzene)]. Single crystals suitable for X-ray diffraction were prepared by slow evaporation of a solution of the title compound in ethyl acetate at room temperature.

Refinement
All H atoms were geometrically positioned and refined using a riding model, with C-H = 0.95 Å for aryl, 0.99 Å for the methylene, and 0.98 Å for methyl H atoms. U iso (H) = 1.2U eq (C) for aryl and methylene, and 1.5U eq (C) for methyl H atoms. The positions of methyl hydrogens were optimized rotationally.

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 > 2sigma(F 2 ) is used only for calculating R-factors(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.