Quantum chemical analysis of the energy of proton transfer from phenol and chlorophenols to H2O in the gas phase and in aqueous solution

Abstract

Proton transfer energies of phenol and 14 chlorophenols with H2O as a base are analyzed in the gas phase and in solution using quantum chemical methods at the semiempirical and ab initio level of computation. The effect of aqueous solution was accounted for by applying the density functional theory (DFT) implementation of the conductor-like screening model (COSMO) as well as semiempirical continuum-solvation models. The results reveal substantial and systematic overestimations of the free energies of proton transfer as derived from experimental solution-phase pKa data. This can be traced back to both deficiencies in the current model parameterization as well as to limitations of the underlying gas-phase quantum chemical models, which is further illustrated by additional complete-basis-set (CBS) calculations for the proton transfer reaction with phenol. In contrast, the relative pKa trend is reflected well by COSMO-DFT calculations with correlation coefficients (adjusted for degrees of freedom) of 0.96. Decomposition of the dissociation energy in aqueous solution into a gas-phase term and a term summarizing the solvation contributions provides new insights into the effect of solvation on proton transfer energies, and yields mechanistic explanations for the observed differences in the gas-phase and solution-phase acidity orders of various subgroups of the compounds.