Periodic ab Initio Approach for the Cooperative Effect of CH/π Interaction in Crystals: Relative Energy of CH/π and Hydrogen-Bonding Interactions

The bonding property of the CH/pi interaction in organic crystals has been investigated by the means of a periodic ab initio method. The energy of the CH(sp(2))/pi interaction in crystals, estimated with periodic RHF/6-21G*, showed a reasonable attractive CH(sp(2))/pi interaction owing to a cooperative effect, whereas the results calculated with RHF/cc-pVDZ indicate a negligibly small or repulsive interaction. The relative contribution of the CH(sp(2))/pi interaction to the column packing energy was found to be roughly half of the energy of a conventional hydrogen bond. The calculation of the charge distributions on the aromatic rings participating in the CH(sp(2))/pi interaction in crystals revealed that the atoms were more ionic than those in the gas phase. These theoretical calculations suggest a hydrogen-bonding characteristic for the CH(sp(2))/pi interaction in crystals, which does not occur in solution nor gas phase. We present computational evidence of the existence of the cooperative effect of CH(sp(2))/pi interaction in crystals.