title: The role of the methyl group in stabilising the weak N-H...pi hydrogen bond in the 4-fluorotoluene-ammonia complex.
abstract: The 4-fluorotoluene-ammonia van der Waals complex has been studied using a combination of resonant two-photon ionisation (R2PI) spectroscopy, ab initio molecular orbital calculations and multidimensional Franck-Condon analysis. The R2PI spectrum shows two sets of features assignable to two distinct conformers: one in which the ammonia binds between the hydrogen meta to the methyl group and the fluorine atom in a planar configuration and the other a pi-bound structure involving one bond between an ammonia hydrogen and the pi-system and another between the ammonia lone pair and the slightly acidic hydrogens on the methyl group. Ground state estimated CCSD(T) interaction energies were computed at the basis-set limit: these calculations yielded very similar interaction energies for the two conformers, whilst zero point energy correction yielded a zero point binding energy for the pi-complex about 10% larger than that of the in-plane, sigma-complex. The results of multidimensional Franck-Condon simulations based on ab initio ground and excited state geometry optimisations and vibrational frequency calculations showed good agreement with experiment, with further improvements achieved using a fitting procedure. The observation of a pi-complex in addition to a sigma-complex supports the intuitive expectation that electron-donating groups should help to increase pi-density and hence stabilise pi-proton acceptor complex formation. In this case, this occurs in spite of the presence of a strongly electron-withdrawing fluorine atom.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington, York, UKYO10 5DD.
authors.forename: Matthew P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Gosling
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pugliesi
authors.forename: Martin C R
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Cockett
mesh_terms: D000641:Ammonia / Q000737:chemistry*; D005461:Fluorine / Q000737:chemistry*; D006859:Hydrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D013816:Thermodynamics; D014050:Toluene / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D005461:Fluorine; D014050:Toluene; D000641:Ammonia; D006859:Hydrogen; D009584:Nitrogen