Bond dissociation basis sets

J.M.L. Martin et al., Combined bond-polarization basis sets for accurate determination of dissociation energies. Part 3. Basis set superposition error in polyatomic systems. Theor. Chim. Acta 76, 195-209 (1989)... 

It is a well-known fact that the Hartree-Fock model does not describe bond dissociation correctly. For example, the H2 molecule will dissociate to an H+ and an atom rather than two H atoms as the bond length is increased. Other methods will dissociate to the correct products however, the difference in energy between the molecule and its dissociated parts will not be correct. There are several different reasons for these problems size-consistency, size-extensivity, wave function construction, and basis set superposition error. 

The dissociation problem is solved in the case of a full Cl wave function. As seen from eq. (4.19), the ionic term can be made to disappear by setting ai = —no- The full Cl wave function generates the lowest possible energy (within the limitations of the chosen basis set) at all distances, with the optimum weights of the HF and doubly excited determinants determined by the variational principle. In the general case of a polyatomic molecule and a large basis set, correct dissociation of all bonds can be achieved if the Cl wave function contains all determinants generated by a full Cl in the valence orbital space. The latter corresponds to a full Cl if a minimum basis is employed, but is much smaller than a full Cl if an extended basis is used. 

Figure 11.1 shows the bond dissociation curve at the HF level with the STO-3G, 3-21G, 6-31G(d,p), cc-pVDZ and cc-pVQZ basis sets. The total energy drops considerably upon going from the STO-3G to the 3-21G and again to the 6-3IG(d,p) basis. This is primarily due to the improved description of the oxygen Is-orbital. The two different... 

We will now look at how different types of wave functions behave when the O-H bond is stretched. The basis set used in all cases is the aug-cc-pVTZ, and the reference curve is taken as the [8, 8J-CASSCF result, which is slightly larger than a full-valence Cl. As mentioned in Section 4.6, this allows a correct dissociation, and since all the valence electrons are correlated, it will generate a curve close to the full Cl limit. The bond dissociation energy calculated at this level is 122.1 kcaPmol, which is comparable to the experimental value of 125.9 kcal/mol. 

With respect to correlation, the behaviour of the hydrogen molecule studied in a subminimal FSGO basis set is still more striking than the one observed in a minimal basis set. By symmetry arguments, the single FSGO which describes the electron pair of the hydrogen molecme is centred at the middle of the H-H bond. As the intemuclear distance increases and ultimately when the molecule dissociates, such a description would lead to a physical nonsense. Indeed, at the dissociation limit, this would correspond to two protons (2H ) and an isolated pair of electrons (2e ). 

C-H and N-H bond dissociation energies (BDEs) of various five- and six-membered ring aromatic compounds (including 1,2,5-oxadiazole) were calculated using composite ab initio CBS-Q, G3, and G3B3 methods. It was found that all these composite ab initio methods provided very similar BDEs, despite the fact that different geometries and different procedures in the extrapolation to complete incorporation of electron correlation and complete basis set limit were used. A good quantitive structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model for the C-H BDEs of aromatic compounds... 

The relative bond enthalpies from the photoacoustic calorimetry studies can be placed on an absolute scale by assuming that the value for D//(Et3Si—H) is similar to D/f(Me3Si—H). In Table 2.2 we have converted the D/frei values to absolute T>H values (third column). On the basis of thermodynamic data, an approximate value of D//(Me3SiSiMc2—H) = 378 kJ/mol can be calculated that it is identical to that in Table 2.2 [1]. A recent advancement of photoacoustic calorimetry provides the solvent correction factor for a particular solvent and allows the revision of bond dissociation enthalpies and conversion to an absolute scale, by taking into consideration reaction volume effects and heat of solvation [8]. In the last colunm of Table 2.2 these values are reported and it is gratifying to see the similarities of the two sets of data. 

Table 2 Equilibrium bond lengths and dissociation energies for the F molecule with a DZP + basis set."...

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