Comparison of Some Computational Methods for Geometry Optimisation of Phosphorus Acid Derivatives

Abstract

Several economical methods for geometry optimization, that should be applicable to larger molecules, have been evaluated for 19 phosphorus acid derivatives. MP2/cc-pVDZ geometry optimizations are used as reference points and the geometries obtained from the other methods are evaluated with respect to deviations in bond lengths and angles, from the reference geometries. The geometry optimization methods are also compared to the much used B3LYP/6-31G(d) method. Single point energies obtained by subsequent EDF1/6-31+G(d) or B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) calculations on the respective equilibrium geometries are also reported relative to the energies obtained from the reference geometries. The geometries from HF/MIDI! optimizations were closer to those of the references than the geometries of the HF/3-21G(d), HF/6-31G(d), and B3LYP/MIDI! optimizations. The EDF1/6-31+G(d) or B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) single point energies obtained from the HF/3-21G(d), HF/6-31G(d), and B3LYP/MIDI! geometries gave a mean absolute deviation (MAD) from that of the reference geometries of 1.4-3.9 kcal mol m 1 . The HF/MIDI! geometries, however, gave EDF1/6-31+G(d) and B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) energies with a MAD of only about 0.5 and 0.55 kcal mol m 1 respectively from the energies obtained with the reference geometries. Thus, use of HF/MIDI! for geometry optimization of phosphorus acids is a method that gives geometries of near-MP2 quality, resulting in a fair accuracy of energies in subsequent single point calculations, at a much lower computational cost other methods that give similar accuracies.