Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 13, 13951-13961 (2011)

DOI: 10.1039/C1CP20480G

An ab initio study of cooperative effects in ternary complexes X:CNH:Z with X, Z=CNH, FH, ClH, FCl, and HLi: structures, binding energies, and spin-spin coupling constants across intermolecular bonds
 
A systematic ab initio investigation has been carried out to determine the structures, binding energies, and spin–spin coupling constants of ternary complexes X:CNH:Z and corresponding binary complexes X:CNH and CNH:Z, for X, Z = CNH, FH, ClH, FCl, and HLi. The enhanced binding energies of ternary complexes X:CNH:Z for fixed X as a function of Z decrease in the same order as the binding energies of the binary complexes CNH:Z. In contrast, the enhanced binding energies of the ternary complexes for fixed Z as a function of X do not decrease in the same order as the binding energies of the binary complexes X:CNH, a consequence of the increased stabilities of ternary complexes FCl:CNH:Z due to very strong chlorine-sharedhalogen bonds. For complexes in which the X⋅⋅⋅CNH interaction is a D–H⋅⋅⋅C hydrogen bond for D–H the proton–donor group (N–H, F–H, or Cl–H), spin–spin coupling constants 1J(D–H) and 2hJ(D–C) in ternary complexes X:CNH:Z decrease in absolute value as the binding energies of binary complexes CNH:Z and the enhanced binding energies of the ternary complexes for fixed X as a function of Z also decrease. However, 2XJ(F–C) increases as the enhanced binding energies of the ternary complexes FCl:CNH:Z decrease, a consequence of the nature of the chlorine-shared halogen bond. The one-bond coupling constants 1J(N–H) for the CNH⋅⋅⋅Z interaction in ternary complexes vary significantly, depending on the nature of the X⋅⋅⋅CNH interaction. The largest values of 1J(N–H) are found for ternary complexes with FCl as X. Two-bond coupling constants 2hJ(N–A) for A the proton-acceptor atom of Z, and 2dJ(N–H) decrease in absolute value in the order of decreasing enhancement energies of ternary complexes X:CNH:Z for fixed Z as a function of X.