Vibrational and electronic spectra of benzophenone in different phase states: Ab initio calculations and experiment

An ab initio method has been used to perform quantum mechanical calculations of the formation energy of different conformers of benzophenone: planar molecule, twisted molecule, planar molecule dimer, twisted molecule dimer; electronic and vibrational spectra of these conformers were also obtained. An assessment of the medium (solvent) influence on the optimal geometry, dipole moment and stability of different forms of benzophenone was performed in the self-consistent reaction field approximation. It is shown that the twisted conformer is more stable than the planar one (the difference of free energies is 32 kJ/mol for free molecules) and it becomes even more stable with the increase in solvent polarity. The calculated electronic and vibrational spectra agree well with the experimental data and properly reflect the complication of the vibrational spectrum when passing from the gaseous phase to the condensed state of benzophenone. The difference between spectral properties of the two dimer forms allows their identification from the spectra and qualitative explanation of the observed peculiarities of phosphorescence of the amorphous phase of benzophenone by the stabilization of different conformers.