Alessandra F. A. Vilela

Intermolecular interactions of H2S with rare gases from molecular beam scattering in the glory regime and from ab initio calculations

Integral cross sections for collisions of rotationally hot H2S molecules with rare gas atoms (Ne, Ar, and Kr) have been measured, in the collision energy range of 10-60 kJ mol(-1), using a molecular beam apparatus operating under high resolution both in angle and in velocity. A well resolved glory pattern has been measured which permitted the accurate characterization of the intermolecular potentials both at long range (in the attractive region) and at intermediate distances (in the well region). Considering the conditions used in the experiments, the obtained potentials must be considered very close to the spherical averages of the full intermolecular potential energy surfaces. Extensive ab initio calculations have also been carried out in parallel in order to characterize energy minima in the potential energy surfaces and energy barriers associated to the motion of the rare gas atoms around H2S. An assessment of the relative role of the various interaction components has been also attempted: the combined analysis of experimental and theoretical results suggests that H2S-rare gas aggregates are mainly bound by nearly isotropic noncovalent interactions of the van der Waals type.

Theoretical study of CH4-CH4, CHF3-CH4, CH4-H2O, and CHF3-H2O dimers.

We have studied systems with typical hydrogen bonding and others with interaction involving hydrogen. CH(4)-CH(4), CH(4)-H(2)O, CHF(3)-CH(4), and CHF(3)-H(2)O dimers were studied using MPWB1K, PBE1PBE, MP2, and QCISD levels of theory with a large number of basis functions. The Pople 6-31+G(2d), 6-311++G(2d,2p), and 6-311++G(3df,3pd) as well as Dunning augmented aug-cc-pVDZ and aug-cc-pVTZ basis sets were used. The dimer geometries were fully optimized. An optimal basis set was determined for these systems to achieve a suitable compromise between accuracy and computational feasibility. A proper strategy was found for the electronic property calculations of dimers studied: the use of aug-cc-pVDZ as the optimal basis set at MP2 level. Dipole moments, polarizabilities, BSSE effects, and DeltaZPE were also analyzed for these dimers.