An ab initio study of the structures and enthalpies of the hydrogen-bonded complexes of the acids H2O,H2S,HCN, and HCl with the anions OH?, SH?, CN?, and Cl?

Ab initio calculations at second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory with the 6-31 + G(d,p) basis set have been performed to determine the equilibrium structures and energies of a series of negative-ion hydrogen-bonded complexes with H₂O, H₂S, HCN, and HCl as proton donors and OH^–, SH^–, CN^–, and Cl^– as proton acceptors. The computed stabilization enthalpies of these complexes are in agreement to within the experimental error of 1 kcal mol^–1 with the gas-phase hydrogen bond enthalpies, except for HOHOH^–, in which case the difference is 1.8 kcal mol^–1. The structures of these complexes exhibit linear hydrogen bonds and directed lone pairs of electrons except for complexes with H₂O as the proton donor, in which cases the hydrogen bonds deviate slightly from linearity. All of the complexes have equilibrium structures in which the hydrogen-bonded proton is nonsymmetrically bound, although the symmetric structures of HOHOH^– and ClHCl^– are only slightly less bound than the equilibrium structures. MP2/6-31 + G(d,p) hydrogen bond energies calculated at optimized MP2/B-31 + G(d,p) and at optimized HF/6-31G(d) geometries are similar. Using HF/6-31G(d) frequencies to evaluate zero-point and thermal vibrational energies does not introduce significant error into the computed hydrogen bond enthalpies of these complexes provided that the hydrogen-bonded proton is definitely nonsymmetrically bound at both Hartree-Fock and MP2.