Crystal structure, spectroscopic study, photoluminescent properties and DFT calculations of the 2-guanidinobenzimidazolium dichloride and dibromide monohydrate salts

Abstract

Two organic salts compounds C8H13Cl2N5O(1) and C8H13Br2N5O(2) were prepared by slow evaporation at room temperature and characterized through single-crystal X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, IR and UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV/DRS) from which the optical properties were determined. The asymmetric unit of (1) and (2) consists of a discrete guanidinobenzimidazolium, two halide anions X− (X = Cl, Br) and one crystallization water molecule. The crystal structures of the two title salts are stabilized by NH … X, OH … X, NH⋯O and CH … X hydrogen bonds. Moreover, the protonated 2-guanidobenzimidazole shows a π-π interaction adding extra stability to the three-dimensional architecture. The ground state geometries of the two compounds were optimized using density functional theory (DFT) at the 6-311+G(2d, 2p) level of theory. In order to study the excited states, time-depending density functional theory calculations were performed on the optimized structures at the same level of theory. The calculated electronic absorption and infrared spectra were in good agreement with the experimental ones.