Exploring the structure–property relationship of ethylenediammonium hydrogen phosphite: Insights from XRD, vibrational, DFT, and biological evaluation

Abstract

The interaction between the molecules of phosphonic acid (H2P(H)O3) and ethylenediamine (NH2CH2CH2NH2) reacts in an aqueous solution and results in the formation of salt molecules with two NH∙∙∙O hydrogen bonds. The calculated stabilization energy of the 1:1 salt molecule, which represents the strength of the two NH∙∙∙O hydrogen bonds, is 8.063 kcal/mol (33.735 kJ/mol). The title compound crystallizes in the centrosymmetric space group Pbca of the orthorhombic system with eight molecules per unit cell. The three-dimensional supramolecular network is formed by hydrogen bonds between every hydrogen atom in both of the NH3+ groups of the ethylenediammonium cation. Hirshfeld surfaces and two-dimensional fingerprint plots were used to analyze the interactions of ethylenediammonium cations and hydrogen phosphite anions forming a three-dimensional supramolecular structure. Practically, two types of interactions, i.e. NH∙∙∙O and H∙∙∙H, are observed for both building units, ethylenediammonium cation and the hydrogen phosphite anion, which cover 100 % of the HS surface of each unit. Density functional theory (DFT) computations of normal mode force constants and structure optimizations were employed to evaluate the molecular structure, fundamental vibrational frequencies, and vibrational band intensities. The utilization of potential energy distribution (PED) allowed for the determination of comprehensive vibrational assignments for the wave numbers. The interactions involving the charge transfers of the supramolecular unit are explained by the computed HOMO and LUMO energy gap of 5.193 eV. To prove that the EDHP has stabilized, NBO analysis has been done. NBO studies establish that strong intra and intermolecular stabilization exists between the ethylenediammonium cation and the hydrogen phosphite anion. Furthermore, to investigate the synthetic chemical EDHP as a possible drug candidate, molecular docking studies and drug-likeness evaluation have been carried out. The best binding energy of the obtained cluster is −3.85 kcal/mol. The rmsd value is found to be 1.950 (≤2 Å) which is fairly good and confirms the best superimposed docked pose. Thus Molecular docking studies reveal that EDHP molecule has a substantial binding affinity for the SARS-CoV-2 protein and can serve as a promising drug candidate. The bioavailability score of 0.55 from pharmacokinetics study suggests that EDHP may have moderate bioavailability.