title: Molecular orbital studies of gas-phase interactions between complex molecules.
abstract: Describing interactions among large molecules theoretically is a challenging task. As an example, we investigated gas-phase interactions between a linear nonionic oligomer and various model compounds (cofactors), which have been reported to associate experimentally, using PM3 semiempirical molecular orbital theory. As oligomer, we studied the hexamer of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), and as cofactors, we studied corilagin and related compounds containing phenolic groups (R-OH). These systems are of interest because they are models for PEO/cofactor flocculation systems, used in industrial applications. The PM3 delocalized molecular orbitals (DLMO) describe the bonding between (PEO)6 and cofactors, and some of them cover the complete complex. The DLMOs which cover the traditionally considered hydrogen bonds R-OH...O or R-CH...O show a distinct "pinch", a decrease of the electron density, between the H...O atoms. Calculations of Gibbs free energy, entropy, and enthalpy show that the PEO/cofactor complexes do not form at room temperature, because the loss of entropy exceeds the increase in enthalpy. The change in enthalpy is linearly related to the change in entropy for the different complexes. Even though bond lengths, bond angles, DLMOs, and electron densities for the PEO/cofactor complexes are consistent with the definition of hydrogen bonds, the number of intermolecular R-OH...O and R-CH...O bonds does not correlate with the enthalpy of association, indicating that the bonding mechanism for these systems is the sum of many small contributions of many delocalized orbitals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, McGill University, 801 Sherbrooke St. W, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2K6.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gaudreault
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Whitehead
authors.forename: Theo G M
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: van de Ven