Blue-shifted A-H stretching modes and cooperative hydrogen bonding. 1. Complexes of substituted formaldehyde with...

The structures and vibrational spectra of the intermolecular complexes formed by insertion of substituted formaldehyde molecules HRCO (R = H, Li, F, Cl) into cyclic hydrogen fluoride and water clusters are studied at the MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ computational level. Depending on the nature of the substituent R, the cluster type, and its size, the C-H stretching modes of HRCO undergo large blue and partly red shifts, whereas all the F-H and O-H stretching modes of the conventional hydrogen bonds are strongly red-shifted. It is shown that (i) the mechanism of blue shifting can be explained within the concept of the negative intramolecular coupling between C-H and C=O bonds that is inherent to the HRCO monomers, (ii) the blue shifts also occur even if no hydrogen bond is formed, and (iii) variation of the acceptor X or the strength of the C-H...X hydrogen bond may either amplify the blue shift or cause a transition from blue shift to red shift. These findings are illustrated by means of intra- and intermolecular scans of the potential energy surfaces. The performance of the negative intramolecular coupling between C-H and C=O bonds of H(2)CO is interpreted in terms of the NBO analysis of the isolated H(2)CO molecule and H(2)CO interacting with (H2O)n and (HF)n clusters.