Steric effect dominates: Ab initio valence bond and block-localized wavefunction methods are used to estimate the contributions of hyperconjugation and steric effects to the ethane rotation barrier. The results show that hyperconjugation stabilizes the staggered conformer by about 4 kJ mol−1 relative to the eclipsed form (see picture) and steric hindrance is the major driving force behind the favoring of the staggered conformation in ethane.
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Mo et al. (2004) studied this question.
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