Theoretical prediction of the hydrogen-bond basicity pK(HB)

Ab initio and DFT calculations on around 65 hydrogen bond or Lewis bases and their complexes with hydrogen fluoride have been performed, and a range of calculated properties from both free bases and complexes correlated with pK(HB), an experimental scale of hydrogen-bond basicity. For the entire range of bases, we found that the hydrogen-bond binding Gibbs free energy computed at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) level of theory linearly correlated with pK(HB). Further improvements in the correlation and prediction of pK(HB) were possible with a non-linear fit by considering the hydrogen bonding Gibbs free energy of another possible stereoisomeric 1:1 complex and/or that of a linear 2:1 complex, which included a second hydrogen fluoride.