N-NO2 bond dissociation energies in acetonitrile: an assessment of contemporary computational methods

The assessment of the N-NO2 bond dissociation energies (BDEs) was performed by various calculating methods (B3LYP, B3PW91, B3P86, B1LYP, BMK, MPWB1K, PBE0, CBS-4M and M06-2X) at 6-311+G(2d,p) basis set. Compared with the experimental BDEs, the results show that BMK and B3P86 methods reproduce the experimental values well. The mean absolute deviations from the experimental values obtained by BMK and B3P86 methods were 0.5 and 1.5 kcal/mol, respectively. B3LYP, B3PW91, B1LYP, MPWB1K and PBE0 methods underestimated the homolytic N-NO2 BDEs. B3LYP, B3PW91, B1LYP, M06-2X, CBS-4M methods failed to provide an accurate description of N-NO2 BDEs for N-Nitrosulfonamide compounds and showed larger mean absolute deviations and maximum deviations. Further, substituent effect based on BMK/6-311+G(2d,p) method was analysis. Natural bond orbital analysis shows that there exist good linear correlations between E((2)) of lpN1→BD*(O1-N2) and Hammett constants and a better correlation between the BDEs and the second order stabilization energy E((2)) of lpN1→BD*(O1-N2).