2-(2-Methyl-benzo-yl)benzoic acid: catemeric hydrogen bonding in a γ-keto acid.

The crystal structure of the title compound, C15H12O3, displays catemeric aggregation involving O-H⋯O hydrogen bonds progressing from the carboxyl group of one mol-ecule to the ketone O atom of another glide-related neighbor. The mol-ecule is twisted, with the toluene 80.61 (3)° out of plane with respect to the phenyl group of the benzoic acid. The acid group makes a dihedral angle of 13.79 (14)° with the attached phenyl ring. The mol-ecules are achiral, but the space group glide planes create alternating conformational chirality in the chain units. The four hydrogen-bonding chains progress along [001] in an A-A-B-B pattern (right-to-left versus left-to-right), and are related to each other by the center of symmetry at (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) in the chosen cell. There is one close contact (2.54 Å) between a phenyl H atom and the acid carbonyl from a symmetry-related mol-ecule.