Theoretical study on the substituent effect of halogen atom at different position of 7-azaindole-water derivatives: relative stability and excited-state proton-transfer mechanism

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We have theoretically investigated the substituted effect on the first excited-state proton-transfer process of nX7AI-H2O (n = 2~6, X = F, Cl, Br) complex at the TD-M06-2X/6-31 + G(d, p) level. Here X is the substituted halogen atom, and n value denotes the substituted position of X, such as C2, C3, C4, C5, or C6. For the substituted 7-azaindole clusters, 6X7AI-H2O molecule is the most stable structure in water. The replacement of halogen atom X does not affect the characters of the HOMO and LUMO, but influence the S0 → S1 adiabatic transition energies of nX7AI-H2O (n = 2~6, X = F, Cl, Br). Our calculated results show that the double proton transfer occurs in a concerted but asynchronous protolysis pathway no matter which H atom is replaced by halogen atom. The halogen substitution changes the structural parameters evidently and leads to amply the asynchronousity during the proton-transfer process. The ESPT barrier height increases or decreases due to the halogen atom and substituted position.