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The gas phase infrared and fragmentation spectra of a systematic group of trimetallic oxo-centered
transition metal complexes are shown and discussed, with formate and acetate bridging ligands and
pyridine and water as axial ligands.
The stability of the complexes, as predicted by appropriate ab initio simulations, is demonstrated to
agree with collision induced dissociation (CID) measurements.
A broad range of DFT calculations are shown. They are used to simulate the geometry, the bonding
situation, relative stability and flexibility of the discussed complexes, and to specify the observed
trends. These simulations correctly predict the trends in the band splitting of the symmetric and
asymmetric carboxylate stretch modes, but fail to account for anharmonic effects observed specifically
in the mid IR range.
The infrared spectra of the different ligands are introduced in a brief literature review. Their changes
in different environments or different bonding situations are discussed and visualized, especially the
interplay between fundamental-, overtone-, and combination bands, as well as Fermi resonances
between them.
A new variation on the infrared multi photon dissociation (IRMPD) spectroscopy method is proposed
and evaluated. In addition to the commonly considered total fragment yield, the cumulative fragment
yield can be used to plot the wavelength dependent relative abundance of different fragmentation
products. This is shown to include valuable additional information on the excited chromophors, and
their coupling to specific fragmentation channels.
High quality homo- and heterometallic IRMPD spectra of oxo centered carboxylate complexes of
chromium and iron show the impacts of the influencing factors: the metal centers, the bridging ligands,
their carboxylate stretch modes and CH bend modes, and the terminal ligands.
In all four formate spectra, anharmonic effects are necessary to explain the observed spectra:
combination bands of both carboxylate stretch modes and a Fermi resonance of the fundamental of
the CH stretch mode, and a combination band of the asymmetric carboxylate stretch mode with the
CH bend mode of the formate bridging ligand.
For the water adduct species, partial hydrolysis is proposed to account for the changes in the observed
carboxylic stretch modes.
Appropriate experiments are suggested to verify the mode assignments that are not directly explained
by the ab initio calculations, the available experimental results or other means like deuteration
experiments.
Within this thesis a series of molecular species has been studied, with focus on hydrogen bonded species and on (solvated) transition metal complexes. Experimental techniques such as FT-ICR-MS and IRMPD were combined with ab initio calculations for the determination of structure and reactivity of the aforementioned types of systems. On the basis of high level electronic structure calculations of neutral water clusters (H2O)n with n = 17-21 a transitional size regime has been determined, where a structural stabilization between all-surface and interior configurations alternates with the addition or removal of a single water molecule. Electronic structure calculations suggested that for n = 17 and 19 the interior configuration would be energetically more stable than the all-surface one. The gas phase infrared spectrum of the singly hydrated ammonium ion, NH4+(H2O), had previously been recorded by photodissociation spectroscopy of mass selected ions and interpreted by means of ab initio calculations. The present work provides additional information on the shape of the potential energy curves of NH4+(H2O) along the N-H distance on MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ level of theory yielding an anharmonic potential shape. Calculation of potential energy curves of the O-H mode of the intramolecular hydrogen bond of various dicarboxylic acids (oxalic to adipic acid) revealed that the shapes of the potentials directly correlate to the size of the system and the resulting ring strain The shape of the potential is also influenced by the charge of the system. Calculation of anharmonic frequencies based on the VPT2 approach lead to reasonable results in all systems with narrow potentials. IRMPD spectra of complexes in the gas phase have been recorded for a series of cationic vanadium oxide complexes when reacted with acetonitrile, methanol and ethanol. The experimental spectra are compared to calculated absorption spectra. The systematic DFT study identifies potential candidates for reductive nitrile coupling in cationic transition metal acetonitrile complexes. On the basis of the calculations, the formation of metallacyclic structures in group 3 through 7 complexes can be ruled out. Solvation of the transition metal cation by five acetonitrile ligands leads to a reductive nitrile coupling reaction in three types of complexes, namely those containing either niobium, tantalum or tungsten.