A first principles study of the acetylene–water interaction

We present an extensive study of the stationary points on the acetylene–water (AW) ground-state potential energy surface (PES) aimed in establishing accurate energetics for the two different bonding scenarios that are considered. Those include arrangements in which water acts either as a proton acceptor from one of the acetylene hydrogen atoms or a proton donor to the triple bond. We used a hierarchy of theoretical methods to account for electron correlation MP2 (second-order Moller–Plesset), MP4 (fourth-order Moller–Plesset), and CCSD(T) (coupled-cluster single double triple) coupled with a series of increasing size augmented correlation consistent basis sets (aug-cc-pVnZ, n=2,3,4). We furthermore examined the effect of corrections due to basis set superposition error (BSSE). We found that those have a large effect in altering the qualitative features of the PES of the complex. They are responsible for producing a structure of higher (C2v) symmetry for the global minimum. Zero-point energy (ZPE) corrections were found to increase the stability of the C2v arrangement. For the global (water acceptor) minimum of C2v symmetry our best estimates are ΔEe=−2.87 kcal/mol (ΔE0=−2.04 kcal/mol) and a van der Waals distance of Re=2.190 Å. The water donor arrangement lies 0.3 kcal/mol (0.5 kcal/mol including ZPE corrections) above the global minimum. The barrier for its isomerization to the global minimum is Ee=0.18 kcal/mol; however, inclusion of BSSE- and ZPE-corrections destabilize the water donor arrangement suggesting that it can readily convert to the global minimum. We therefore conclude that there exists only one minimum on the PES in accordance with previous experimental observations. To this end, vibrational averaging and to a lesser extend proper description of intermolecular interactions (BSSE) were found to have a large effect in altering the qualitative features of the ground-state PES of the acetylene–water complex.