A DFT study on the complexation of La3+ ion with malonamide and diglycolamide ligands

The main goal of this research is to investigate the structural and thermochemical aspects of complexation between La³⁺ with tetrapropyl malonamide (TPMA) and tetrapropyl diglycolamide (TPDGA) ligands via density functional theory (DFT) methods. In this respect, the structural parameters of [La-TPMA]³⁺ and [La-TPDGA]³⁺ complexes have been calculated and compared with the available X-ray crystallographic data. These comparisons revealed that both calculated structural values using B3LYP and M06 are in a reliable agreement with X-ray crystal structure with a near accuracy. In the next step, the more efficiency of diglycolamides in comparison with malonamides in the extraction of La³⁺ have been analyzed by calculating thermochemical properties of the complexation. It should be stated that this issue has been observed in many experimental elucidations. In the next step, the inclusion of solvent effects on thermodynamical properties of complexation has been evaluated via polarized continuum model (PCM) calculations. In this context, enthalpy and Gibbs free energy changes have been determined in the presence of three solvents, chloroform, toluene and n-hexane. Our obtained results demonstrate that using n-hexane as solvent is more favorable thermodynamically than chloroform and toluene that confirms the previously observed experiments. Finally, the bond orders of some selected key bonds in TPMA and TPDGA ligands and their corresponded La³⁺ complexes have been evaluated comparatively to analyze the electronic features of coordination in [La-TPMA]³⁺ and [La-TPDGA]³⁺ complexes.