Van der Waals complexes of small molecules with benzenoid rings: Influence of multipole moments on their mutual orientation

Intermolecular interaction between some small molecules (HF, H2O, NH3, and CH4) and certain benzenoid ring systems (benzene, hexafluorobenzene, and 1,3,5-trifluorobenzene) has been investigated in detail at MP2 level of theory using 6-311++G** basis set, and the results are corrected for basis set superposition error (BSSE). Vibrational frequencies were calculated for all the geometries at the same level of theory and basis sets to ensure that the geometries obtained correspond to true minima. In the complexes with benzene, which has a large negative quadrupole moment, the preferred geometry has the electropositive end of the small molecule (HF, H2O, and NH3) pointing toward the ring and the corresponding interaction energies are -3.24, -2.43, and -1.57 kcal/mol, respectively. For the complexes with hexafluorobenzene which has a large positive quadrupole moment, the most stable geometries are those in which the electropositive end of HF, H2O, and NH3 points away from the ring and the corresponding interaction energies are -1.59, -2.73, and -3.14 kcal/mol, respectively. Methane, which has neither a dipole nor a quadrupole moment, is weakly bound and is oriented differently in different systems. 1,3,5-Trifluorobenzene has a negligible quadrupole moment, and the complexes with small molecules are stabilized by cyclic hydrogen bonding. Although the point dipole-quadrupole and point quadrupole-quadrupole interactions present in these complexes account qualitatively for the preferred orientations, distributed multipole moments of the constituent atoms are found to give a quantitative description of the interaction in such complexes.