Probing Dative and Dihydrogen Bonding in Ammonia Borane with Electronic Structure Computations and Raman under Nitrogen Spectroscopy

Although ammonia borane is isoelectronic with ethane and they have similar structures, BH 3 NH 3 exhibits rather atypical bonding compared to that in CH 3 CH 3 . The central bond in ammonia borane is actually a coordinate covalent or dative bond rather than the conventional covalent C-C bond in ethane where each atom donates one electron. In addition, strong intermolecular dihydrogen bonds can form between two or more ammonia borane molecules compared to the relatively weak dispersion forces between ethane molecules. As a result, ammonia borane's physical properties are very sensitive to the environment. For example, gas-phase and solid-state ammonia borane have very different BN bond lengths and BN stretching frequencies, which led to much debate in the literature. It has been demonstrated that the use of cluster models based on experimental crystal structures led to better agreement between theory and experiment. Here, we employ a variety of cluster models to track how the interaction energies, bond lengths, and vibrational normal modes evolve with the size and structural characteristics of the clusters. The M06-2X/6-311++G(2df,2pd) level of theory was selected for this analysis on the basis of favorable comparison with CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVTZ data for the ammonia borane monomer and dimer. Fourteen unique fully optimized molecular cluster geometries, (BH 3 NH 3 ) n≤12 , and nine crystal models, (BH 3 NH 3 ) n≤19 , were used to elucidate how the local environment impacts ammonia borane's physical properties. Computational results for the BN stretching frequencies are also compared directly to the Raman spectrum of solid ammonia borane at 77 K using Raman under liquid nitrogen spectroscopy (RUNS). A strong linear correlation was found to exist between the BN bond length and stretching frequency, from an isolated monomer to the most distorted BH 3 NH 3 unit in a cluster or crystal structure model. Excellent agreement was seen between the frequencies computed for the largest crystal model and the RUNS experimental spectra (typically within a few wavenumbers).