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Bond dissociation energies (BDE) are key descriptors for molecules and are among the most sought-after properties in chemistry. Despite their importance, the accurate prediction of BDE’s for transition metal species can be particularly daunting for both experiment and computation. Experimental data has been limited and, when available, often has large error bars, making the critical evaluation and identification of suitable computational methods difficult. However, recent advancements in the experimental determination of BDE’s with techniques such as Velocity Map Imaging and 2 Photon Ionization now provide useful gauges for computational strategies and new methodologies, providing energies with unprecedented accuracies. The vanadium diatomics (VX, X=B, C, N, O, F, Al, Si, P, S, Cl) have been challenging for computational chemistry methods, and, thus, a new experimental gauge enables methods to be reevaluated and developed for these species. Herein, the super-correlation consistent Composite (super-ccCA or s-ccCA), a new thermochemical scheme centered around CCSD(T)/complete basis set (CBS) limit computations with additional contributions that account for scalar-relativistic effects, and coupled cluster contributions beyond CCSD(T) up to quintuple excitations has been considered. The agreement between determinations made by the s-ccCA scheme and by recent experiment is excellent, demonstrating the utility of the new approach in addressing challenging metal systems, even those of multireference nature. In light of recent experimental BDE’s, the longstanding correlation consistent composite approach (ccCA) is also evaluated for the VX species and find that the mean absolute deviation (MAD) is greatly reduced compared to previously used experimental values. 

The f-block ab initio correlation consistent composite approach was used to predict the dissociation energies of lanthanide sulfides and selenides. Geometry optimizations were carried out using density functional theory and coupled cluster singles, doubles, and perturbative triples with one- and two-component Hamiltonians. For the two-component calculations, relativistic effects were accounted for by utilizing a third-order Douglas–Kroll–Hess Hamiltonian. Spin–orbit coupling was addressed with the Breit–Pauli Hamiltonian within a multireference configuration interaction approach. The state averaged complete active space self-consistent field wavefunctions obtained for the spin–orbit coupling energies were used to assign the ground states of diatomics, and several diagnostics were used to ascertain the multireference character of the molecules. 

Ab initio composite approaches have been utilized to model and predict main group thermochemistry within 1 kcal mol⁻¹, on average, from well‐established reliable experiments, primarily for molecules with less than 30 atoms. For molecules of increasing size and complexity, such as biomolecular complexes, composite methodologies have been limited in their application. Therefore, the domain‐based local pair natural orbital (DLPNO) methods have been implemented within the correlation consistent composite approach (ccCA) framework, namely DLPNO‐ccCA, to reduce the computational cost (disk space, CPU (central processing unit) time, memory) and predict energetic properties such as enthalpies of formation, noncovalent interactions, and conformation energies for organic biomolecular complexes including one of the largest molecules examined via composite strategies, within 1 kcal mol⁻¹, after calibration with 119 molecules and a set of linear alkanes. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.