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Abstract Hydrogen bonding is a central concept in chemistry and biochemistry, and so it continues to attract intense study. Here, we examine hydrogen bonding in the H₂S dimer, in comparison with the well-studied water dimer, in unprecedented detail. We record a mass-selected IR spectrum of the H₂S dimer in superfluid helium nanodroplets. We are able to resolve a rotational substructure in each of the three distinct bands and, based on it, assign these to vibration-rotation-tunneling transitions of a single intramolecular vibration. With the use of high-level potential and dipole-moment surfaces we compute the vibration-rotation-tunneling dynamics and far-infrared spectrum with rigorous quantum methods. Intramolecular mode Vibrational Self-Consistent-Field and Configuration-Interaction calculations provide the frequencies and intensities of the four SH-stretch modes, with a focus on the most intense, the donor bound SH mode which yields the experimentally observed bands. We show that the intermolecular modes in the H₂S dimer are substantially more delocalized and more strongly mixed than in the water dimer. The less directional nature of the hydrogen bonding can be quantified in terms of weaker electrostatic and more important dispersion interactions. The present study reconciles all previous spectroscopic data, and serves as a sensitive test for the potential and dipole-moment surfaces. 

Abstract The global minima of urea and thiourea were characterized along with other low‐lying stationary points. Each structure was optimized with the CCSD(T) method and triple‐ζcorrelation consistent basis sets followed by harmonic vibrational frequency computations. Relative energies evaluated near the complete basis set limit with both canonical and explicitly correlated CCSD(T) techniques reveal several subtle but important details about both systems. These computations resolve a discrepancy by demonstrating that the electronic energy of the C_2vsecond‐order saddle point of urea lies at least 1.5 kcal mol⁻¹above the C₂global minimum regardless of whether the structures were optimized with MP2, CCSD, or CCSD(T). Additionally, urea effectively has one minimum instead of two because the electronic barrier for inversion at one amino group in the C_slocal minimum vanishes at the CCSD(T) CBS limit. Characterization of both systems with the same ab initio methods and large basis sets conclusively establishes that the electronic barriers to inversion at one or both NH₂groups in thiourea are appreciably smaller than in urea. CCSDT(Q)/cc‐pVTZ computations show higher‐order electron correlation effects have little impact on the relative energies and are consistently offset by core correlation effects of opposite sign and comparable magnitude.