Posts Tagged ‘dispersion’

A molecular balance for dispersion energy?

Sunday, February 7th, 2016

The geometry of cyclo-octatetraenes differs fundamentally from the lower homologue benzene in exhibiting slow (nuclear) valence bond isomerism rather than rapid (electronic) bond-equalising resonance. In 1992 Anderson and Kirsch[1] exploited this property to describe a simple molecular balance for estimating how two alkyl substituents on the ring might interact via the (currently very topical) mechanism of dispersion (induced-dipole-induced-dipole) attractions. These electron correlation effects are exceptionally difficult to model using formal quantum mechanics and are nowadays normally replaced by more empirical functions such as Grimme's D3BJ correction.[2] Here I explore aspects of how the small molecule below might be used to investigate the accuracy of such estimates of dispersion energies.

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References

  1. J.E. Anderson, and P.A. Kirsch, "Structural equilibria determined by attractive steric interactions. 1,6-Dialkylcyclooctatetraenes and their bond-shift and ring inversion investigated by dynamic NMR spectroscopy and molecular mechanics calculations", Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions 2, pp. 1951, 1992. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/P29920001951
  2. S. Grimme, S. Ehrlich, and L. Goerigk, "Effect of the damping function in dispersion corrected density functional theory", Journal of Computational Chemistry, vol. 32, pp. 1456-1465, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jcc.21759

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Modelling the geometry of unbranched alkanes.

Saturday, March 29th, 2014

By about C17H36, the geometry of “cold-isolated” unbranched saturated alkenes is supposed not to contain any fully anti-periplanar conformations. [1] Indeed, a (co-crystal) of C16H34 shows it to have two-gauche bends.[2]. Surprisingly, the longest linear alkane I was able to find a crystal structure for, C28H58 appears to be fully extended[3],[4] (an early report of a low quality structure for C36H74[5] also appears to show it as linear).‡ Here I explore how standard DFT theories cope with these structures.

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References

  1. N.O.B. Lüttschwager, T.N. Wassermann, R.A. Mata, and M.A. Suhm, "The Last Globally Stable Extended Alkane", Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 52, pp. 463-466, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201202894
  2. N. Cocherel, C. Poriel, J. Rault-Berthelot, F. Barrière, N. Audebrand, A. Slawin, and L. Vignau, "New 3π-2Spiro Ladder-Type Phenylene Materials: Synthesis, Physicochemical Properties and Applications in OLEDs", Chemistry - A European Journal, vol. 14, pp. 11328-11342, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/chem.200801428
  3. S.C. Nyburg, and A.R. Gerson, "Crystallography of the even n-alkanes: structure of C20H42", Acta Crystallographica Section B Structural Science, vol. 48, pp. 103-106, 1992. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108768191011059
  4. R. Boistelle, B. Simon, and G. Pèpe, "Polytypic structures of n-C28H58 (octacosane) and n-C36H74 (hexatriacontane)", Acta Crystallographica Section B Structural Crystallography and Crystal Chemistry, vol. 32, pp. 1240-1243, 1976. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0567740876005025
  5. H.M.M. Shearer, and V. Vand, "The crystal structure of the monoclinic form of n-hexatriacontant", Acta Crystallographica, vol. 9, pp. 379-384, 1956. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0365110X5600111X

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