Document Type
Article
Author ORCID Identifier
Steve Scheiner https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0793-0369
Journal/Book Title
Molecules
Publication Date
1-12-2021
Publisher
MDPI AG
Award Number
NSF, Division of Chemistry (CHE) 1954310
Funder
NSF, Division of Chemistry (CHE)
Volume
26
Issue
2
First Page
1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Last Page
19
Abstract
Bifurcated halogen bonds are constructed with FBr and FI as Lewis acids, paired with NH3 and NCH bases. The first type considered places two bases together with a single acid, while the reverse case of two acids sharing a single base constitutes the second type. These bifurcated systems are compared with the analogous H-bonds wherein FH serves as the acid. In most cases, a bifurcated system is energetically inferior to a single linear bond. There is a larger energetic cost to forcing the single σ-hole of an acid to interact with a pair of bases, than the other way around where two acids engage with the lone pair of a single base. In comparison to FBr and FI, the H-bonding FH acid is better able to participate in a bifurcated sharing with two bases. This behavior is traced to the properties of the monomers, in particular the specific shape of the molecular electrostatic potential, the anisotropy of the orbitals of the acid and base that interact directly with one another, and the angular extent of the total electron density of the two molecules.
Recommended Citation
Scheiner, S. Comparison of Bifurcated Halogen with Hydrogen Bonds. Molecules 2021, 26, 350. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26020350
