Ab initio studies on several species of the formula X3YO and X3YOH

Ab initio molecular orbital calculations using both minimal and extended basis sets have been applied to two isoelectronic sets of molecules. One set corresponds to the 18 electron species H₃NO, H₃CO^– and H₃COH while the second set contains the 42 electron fluorinated molecules F₃NO, F₃CO^– and F₃COH. The geometries of these molecules have been optimized, using both the minimal STO-3G and the extended 4-31G basis sets. These comparative calculations reveal that the 4-31G basis produced structural parameters in much better agreement with experiment. The effect of includingd-orbitals in the basis set was also investigated. For the fluorinated oxides it has been found that the optimized 4-31G structures were only slightly altered by the addition ofd-orbitals. For H₃NO, on the other hand, the inclusion ofd-orbitals considerably shortens the N-O bond distance. Both H₃NO and CF₃OH, which are unknown experimentally, are theoretically predicted to be capable of existence. The electronic structures of these molecules have also been examined using electronic partitioning according to the Mulliken scheme.