Accurate equilibrium structures of fluoro- and chloroderivatives of methane

Abstract

This work is a systematic study of molecular structure of fluoro-, chloro-, and fluorochloromethanes. For the first time, the accurate ab initio structure is computed for 10 molecules (CF4, CClF3, CCl2F2, CCl3F, CHClF2, CHCl2F, CH2F2, CH2ClF, CH2Cl2, and CCl4) at the coupled cluster level of electronic structure theory including single and double excitations augmented by a perturbational estimate of the effects of connected triple excitations [CCSD(T)] with all electrons being correlated and Gaussian basis sets of at least quadruple-ζ quality. Furthermore, when possible, namely for the molecules CH2F2, CH2Cl2, CH2ClF, CHClF2, and CCl2F2, accurate semi-experimental equilibrium (rSEe) structure has also been determined. This is achieved through a least-squares structural refinement procedure based on the equilibrium rotational constants of all available isotopomers, determined by correcting the experimental ground-state rotational constants with computed ab initio vibration–rotation interaction constants and electronic g-factors. The computed and semi-experimental equilibrium structures are in excellent agreement with each other, but the rSEe structure is generally more accurate, in particular for the CF and CCl bond lengths. The carbon–halogen bond length is discussed within the framework of the ligand close-packing model as a function of the atomic charges. For this purpose, the accurate equilibrium structures of some other molecules with alternative ligands, such as CH3Li, CF3CCH, and CF3CN, are also computed.