Huckel

The Hiickel method and is one of the earliest and simplest semiempirical methods. A Hiickel calculation models only the n valence electrons in a planar conjugated hydrocarbon. A parameter is used to deseribe the interaction between bonded atoms. There are no second atom affects. Hiickel calculations do reflect orbital symmetry and qualitatively predict orbital coefficients. Hiickel calculations can give crude quantitative information or qualitative insight into conjugated compounds, but are seldom used today. The primary use of Hiickel calculations now is as a class exercise because it is a calculation that can be done by hand. 

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For dilute solutions, the Debye-Huckel equation by calculations based on these Coulombic interactions is... 

The ordinary Debye-Huckel interionic attraction effects have been neglected and are of second-order importance. 

Fisher M and Levin Y 1993 Criticality in ionic fluids Debye Huckel Theory, Bjerrum and beyond Phys. Rev. Lett. 71 3826... 

Finally, the distinction between Huckel and Mobius systems is considered. The above definitions are valid for Hiickel-type reactions. For aromatic Mobius-type reations, the reverse holds An ATS is formed when an even number of electron pairs is re-paired. 

Electi ocyclic reactions are examples of cases where ic-electiDn bonds transform to sigma ones [32,49,55]. A prototype is the cyclization of butadiene to cyclobutene (Fig. 8, lower panel). In this four electron system, phase inversion occurs if no new nodes are fomred along the reaction coordinate. Therefore, when the ring closure is disrotatory, the system is Hiickel type, and the reaction a phase-inverting one. If, however, the motion is conrotatory, a new node is formed along the reaction coordinate just as in the HCl + H system. The reaction is now Mdbius type, and phase preserving. This result, which is in line with the Woodward-Hoffmann rules and with Zimmerman s Mdbius-Huckel model [20], was obtained without consideration of nuclear symmetry. This conclusion was previously reached by Goddard [22,39]. 

In spite of the success of this method it was later felt that the calculation of the charge distribution in conjugated r-systems should be put on a less empirical basis. To achieve this, a modified Huckel Molecular Orbital (HMO) approach (Section 7.4) was developed. Again, the charge distribution in the r-skeleton is first calculated by the PEOE method. 

Then the Huckel matrix for the conjugated i -system is constructed. The a-values of the Huckel matrix of each atom i of the conjugated system are adjusted to the <7-chaige distribution by Eq. (13). 

HMO theory is named after its developer, Erich Huckel (1896-1980), who published his theory in 1930 [9] partly in order to explain the unusual stability of benzene and other aromatic compounds. Given that digital computers had not yet been invented and that all Hiickel s calculations had to be done by hand, HMO theory necessarily includes many approximations. The first is that only the jr-molecular orbitals of the molecule are considered. This implies that the entire molecular structure is planar (because then a plane of symmetry separates the r-orbitals, which are antisymmetric with respect to this plane, from all others). It also means that only one atomic orbital must be considered for each atom in the r-system (the p-orbital that is antisymmetric with respect to the plane of the molecule) and none at all for atoms (such as hydrogen) that are not involved in the r-system. Huckel then used the technique known as linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) to build these atomic orbitals up into molecular orbitals. This is illustrated in Figure 7-18 for ethylene. 

As mentioned above, HMO theory is not used much any more except to illustrate the principles involved in MO theory. However, a variation of HMO theory, extended Huckel theory (EHT), was introduced by Roald Hof nann in 1963 [10]. EHT is a one-electron theory just Hke HMO theory. It is, however, three-dimensional. The AOs used now correspond to a minimal basis set (the minimum number of AOs necessary to accommodate the electrons of the neutral atom and retain spherical symmetry) for the valence shell of the element. This means, for instance, for carbon a 2s-, and three 2p-orbitals (2p, 2p, 2p ). Because EHT deals with three-dimensional structures, we need better approximations for the Huckel matrix than... 

I h c simplest approximation to tlic Scfi rod in gcr equation is an in clepen dcri l-eleelron appi oxim alion, sucli as Ui e H iiekel method for tr-clcetron systems, developed by H. Huckel. I-atcr, others, principally Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University, extended tlie Htiekel approximations to arbitrary systems having both nand a electrons the Hxtended Huckel Theory (KHT) approximation. ... 

The logical order in which to present molecular orbital calculations is ab initio, with no approximations, through semiempirical calculations with a restricted number of approximations, to Huckel molecular orbital calculations in which the approximations are numerous and severe. Mathematically, however, the best order of presentation is just the reverse, with the progression from simple to difficult methods being from Huckel methods to ab initio calculations. We shall take this order in the following pages so that the mathematical steps can be presented in a graded way. 

The simplest molecular orbital method to use, and the one involving the most drastic approximations and assumptions, is the Huckel method. One str ength of the Huckel method is that it provides a semiquantitative theoretical treatment of ground-state energies, bond orders, electron densities, and free valences that appeals to the pictorial sense of molecular structure and reactive affinity that most chemists use in their everyday work. Although one rarely sees Huckel calculations in the resear ch literature anymore, they introduce the reader to many of the concepts and much of the nomenclature used in more rigorous molecular orbital calculations. 

We have said that the Schroedinger equation for molecules cannot be solved exactly. This is because the exact equation is usually not separable into uncoupled equations involving only one space variable. One strategy for circumventing the problem is to make assumptions that pemiit us to write approximate forms of the Schroedinger equation for molecules that are separable. There is then a choice as to how to solve the separated equations. The Huckel method is one possibility. The self-consistent field method (Chapter 8) is another. 

Three major approximations are made to separate the Schroedinger equation into a set of smaller equations before carrying out Huckel calculations. 

The Bom-Oppenheimer approximation is not peculiar to the Huckel molecular orbital method. It is used in virtually all molecular orbital calculations and most atomic energy calculations. It is an excellent approximation in the sense that the approximated energies are very close to the energies we get in test cases on simple systems where the approximation is not made. 

It has been known for more than a century that hydrocarbons containing double bonds are more reactive than their counterparts that do not contain double bonds. Alkenes are, in general, more reactive than alkanes. We call electrons in double bonds 71 electrons and those in the much less reactive C—C or CH bonds Huckel theory, we assume that the chemistry of unsaturated hydrocarbons is so dominated by the chemistry of their double bonds that we may separate the Schroedinger equation yet again, into an equation for potential energy. We now have an equation of the same fomi as Eq. (6-8), but one in which the Hamiltonian for all elections is replaced by the Hamiltonian for Ji electrons only... 

In summary, we have made three assumptions 1) the Bom-Oppenheimer approximation, 2) the independent particle assumption governing molecular orbitals, and 3) the assumption of n-molecular orbital theory, but the third is unique to the Huckel molecular orbital method. 

Returning to Huckel theory for ethylene, and substituting the first LCAO [Eq. (6-15a)] for v /, we have... 

Polynomial root finding, as in the previous section, has some technical pitfalls that one would like to avoid. It is easier to write reliable software for matrix diagonalization (QMOBAS, TMOBAS) than it is for polynomial root finding hence, diagonalization is the method of choice for Huckel calculations. 

HUCKEL MOLECULAR ORBITAL THEORY I EIGENVALUES by the matrix... 

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