Electronic structure of 1,3,5-triaminobenzene trication and related triradicals: doublet versus quartet ground state

Quantum chemical calculations have been carried out to determine the electronic ground state of the parent 1,3,5-triaminobenzene trication triradical (TAB3+,C6H9N3 3+) containing a six-membered benzene ring coupled with three exocyclic amino NH(*+)2 groups, each containing an unpaired electron, as the simplest model for high-spin polyarylamine polycations. Related triradicals, including the 1,3,5-trimethylenebenzene (TMB, C9H9) and its nitrogen derivatives such as the monocation C8H9N+, the dication C7H9N2 2+, and the neutral C8H8N, C7H7N2, and C6H6N3 systems containing NH groups, have also been considered. Results obtained using the CASSCF [multiconfigurational complete active space (SCF--self-consistent field)] method, with active spaces ranging from (9e/9o) to (15e/12o), followed by second-order perturbation theory [CASPT2 and MS-CASPT2 (MS--multistate)] with polarized 6-311G(d,p) and natural orbital (ANO-L) basis sets reveal the following: (i) both TAB3+ and TMB (D3h) have a quartet 4A"1 ground state with doublet-quartet 2B1-4A"1 energy gaps of 8.0+/-2.0 and 12.4+/-2.0 kcal/mol, respectively; (ii) in the neutral N series, the quartet state remains the electronic ground state, irrespective of the number of N atoms, but each with slightly reduced gap, 11 kcal/mol for C8H8N (4A"), 10 kcal/mol for C7H7N2 (4A2), and 9 kcal/mol for C6H6N3 (4A2); and (iii) the ground state of monoamino cation and diamino dication is a low-spin doublet state (2B1 for C8H9N+ and 2A2 for C7H9N2 2+) and lying well below the corresponding quartet state by 10 and 12 kcal/mol, respectively. In the monocationic and dicationic amino systems, a slight preference is found for the low-spin state, apparently violating Hund's rule. This effect is due to the splitting of the orbital energies and the presence of the positive charge whose delocalization strongly modifies the electronic distribution and some structural features. In the latter cations, the positive charge basically pushes unpaired electrons onto the ring forming a kind of distonic radical cations and thus gives a preference for a low-spin state.