Pyrazines, aromaticity conformations

In the X-ray analysis of a crystal structure the first step is the determination of the space group and the number of molecules in the unit cell. Occasionally it may be immediately apparent from such data that the molecule itself possesses certain elements of symmetry, and these may define or at least limit the possible molecular conformations. The elements most commonly found in aromatic molecules are centres of symmetry and twofold rotation axes. It might have been expected that the plane of symmetry would manifest itself in aromatic systems, but this is disappointingly rare. Indeed, amongst the structures reviewed here the only cases where a crystallographic symmetry plane coincides with that of a planar molecule occur in s-triazine and pyrazine (see Section V, A, 5). 

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