Direct self-consistent reaction field with Pauli repulsion: Solvation effects on methylene peroxide

The properties of methylene peroxide in the gas phase and water have been examined. The solution effects have been modeled with a cavity. To make it possible to optimize the geometry of the cavity, we have added an approximate description of the Pauli repulsion between the solvent and the solute. An efficient direct implementation of the calculation of multicenter multipole operators is also described. We have applied the method to calculate the electric properties of methylene peroxide, a system that is characterized by its near degeneracy between a biradical and a zwitterionic state. As expected, it is shown that solvent effects will stabilize the ionic configuration, resulting in a considerably weakened OO bond and an increased double bond character in the CO bond. The theoretical study has been performed using the multiconfigurational (CAS) SCF method and second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2).