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A valence bond study of the dioxygen molecule
Author(s) -
Su Peifeng,
Song Lingchun,
Wu Wei,
Hiberty Philippe C.,
Shaik Sason
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of computational chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.907
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1096-987X
pISSN - 0192-8651
DOI - 10.1002/jcc.20490
Subject(s) - delocalized electron , molecule , excited state , valence bond theory , dissociation (chemistry) , chemistry , wave function , potential energy , chemical bond , valence (chemistry) , generalized valence bond , computational chemistry , ground state , bond dissociation energy , bond length , valence electron , atomic physics , chemical physics , electron , molecular orbital , physics , quantum mechanics , organic chemistry
The dioxygen molecule has been the subject of valence bond (VB) studies since 1930s, as it was considered as the first “failure” of VB theory. The object of this article is to provide an unambiguous VB interpretation for the nature of chemical bonding of the molecule by means of modern VB computational methods, VBSCF, BOVB, and VBCI. It is shown that though the VBSCF method can not provide quantitative accuracy for the strongly electronegative and electron‐delocalized molecule because of the lack of dynamic correlation, it still gives a correct qualitative analysis for wave function of the molecule and provides intuitive insights into chemical bonding. An accurate quantitative description for the molecule requires higher levels of VB methods that incorporate dynamic correlation. The potential energy curves of the molecule are computed at the various VB levels. It is shown that there exists a small hump in the PECs of VBSCF for the ground state, as found in previous studies. However, higher levels of VB methods dissolve the hump. The BOVB and VBCI methods reproduce the dissociation energies and other physical properties of the ground state and the two lowest excited states in very good agreement with experiment and with sophisticated MO based methods, such as the MRCI method. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2007