Question

Which of the following conformers of isobutyl chloride is the most stable?

Short answer

Conformer A is the most stable conformer of isobutyl chloride.

Step-by-step solution

Newman projection

These conformers are shown in Newman projections. Here, the front carbon is shown by a dot, and the back carbon is shown by a circle. The front carbon atom is called proximal and the back carbon atom is called distal. The bonds are free to rotate.

The most stable conformer of isobutyl chloride.

Conformer A is most stable because all the three substituents are more spread out and there will be no gauche interactions.

The other two conformers have a chlorine atom in between two methyl groups so these are not much stable.