Stationary points on the aminomethanol potential energy surface

Summary In this work we study surface fitting equations for a rigid rotor model of aminomethanol. The energies were obtained from the GAUSSIAN88 package using 3-21G bases and fitted on a least square equation, thus generating a Fourier series expansion of the energy as a function of two dihedral angles. The dihedral angles chosen are those that represent rotation around the C-O and N-C axes in the first case, and rotation around C-O and inversion around the amino group in the second case. Results indicate that the hydroxyl hydrogen is subject to almost free rotation around the C-O axis. Further fully relaxed 6-31G* calculations were performed in order to qualify the results obtained for the rigid rotor model.