Resonance structures of the amide bond: the advantages of planarity

Delocalization indexes based on magnitudes derived from electron-pair densities are demonstrated to be useful indicators of electron resonance in amides. These indexes, based on the integration of the two-electron density matrix over the atomic basins defined through the zero-flux condition, have been calculated for a series of amides at the B3LYP/6-31+G* level of theory. These quantities, which can be viewed as a measure of the sharing of electrons between atoms, behave in concordance with the traditional resonance model, even though they are integrated in Bader atomic basins. Thus, the use of these quantities overcomes contradictory results from analyses of atomic charges, yet keeps the theoretical appeal of using nonarbitrary atomic partitions and unambiguously defined functions such as densities and pair densities. Moreover, for a large data set consisting of 24 amides plus their corresponding rotational transition states, a linear relation was found between the rotational barrier for the amide and the delocalization index between the nitrogen and oxygen atoms, indicating that this parameter can be used as an ideal physical-chemical indicator of the electron resonance in amides.