Crystal structure and Hirshfeld surface analysis, crystal voids, interaction energy calculations and energy frameworks of <i>C</i> -anthracen-9-yl- <i>N</i> -methyl aldonitrone

The title com-pound (systematic name: 1-anthracen-9-yl-<i>N</i>-methyl-methanimine oxide), C₁₆H₁₃NO, contains an almost planar anthracene ring system [r.m.s. deviation = 0.021 (1) Å]. In the crystal, inter-molecular bifurcated C-H⋯O hy-dro-gen bonds link the mol-ecules into infinite chains along the <i>a</i>-axis direction. The π-π stacking inter-actions between the benzene rings of adjacent mol-ecules help to consolidate the three-dimensional architecture. The Hirshfeld surface analysis of the crystal structure indicates that the most important contributions for the crystal packing are from H⋯H (54.5%), H⋯C/C⋯H (23.7%), H⋯O/O⋯H (10.6%) and C⋯C (9.8%) inter-actions. The volume of the crystal voids and the percentage of free space were calculated to be 76.07 ų and 6.57%, respectively, showing that there is no large cavity in the crystal packing. Evaluation of the electrostatic, dispersion and total energy frameworks indicates that the stabilization largely depends on dispersion energy contributions. Hydrogen bonding, π-π and van der Waals inter-actions, together with the dispersion energy contributions, are the dominant inter-actions in the crystal packing.