Effect of skeletal relaxation on the methyl torsion potential in acetaldehyde

Fully‐relaxed model ab initio calculations at Hartree–Fock/6–31G(d,p) and Mo/ller–Plesset (MP2)/6–31G(d,p) levels for acetaldehyde methyl conformers indicate significant skeletal flexing (e.g., the CH3 –C bond length changes by 0.006 A) and methyl hydrogen folding. Thirteen methyl conformer energies at 15° intervals are used to assess the magnitudes of the torsional potential function expansion terms. Only two terms V3=373.8 and V6=3.4 cm−1 (both significantly different from those obtained from microwave and infrared analyses) are found to be important. These calculations clearly show that relaxation during methyl rotation (i.e., skeletal flexing and methyl hydrogen folding) is an important determinant of the torsional potential. Energy levels obtained from internal rotation potentials which include flexing simulate infrared torsional fundamental frequencies in CH3CHO and CD3CHO to within 1–2 cm−1 of the experimental values. In the absence of relaxation infrared torsional fundamental frequencies are poorl...

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