2,3-Diethoxy-9,10-anthraquinone.

Anthraquinone derivatives form an important class of dyes and are also known for their medicinal properties. Recently, 2,3-disubstituted anthraquinones have been shown unexpectedly to jellify various organic solvents. No information on the packing mode of these derivatives was known. Here, the first X-ray structure of a 2,3-disubstituted anthraquinone is reported, namely 2,3-diethoxy-9,10-anthraquinone, C(18)H(16)O(4). The merit of this study lies in the observation of significant differences between the packing in 9,10-anthraquinone, which displays a herring-bone arrangement, and that in the title 2,3-diethoxy derivative, in which the molecules lie on parallel crystallographic morror planes separated by a distance of 3.4081 (1) A, reminiscent of the graphite layer architecture.