Molecular structure and modeling studies of azobenzene derivatives containing maleimide groups

The molecular orbital calculations have been carried out to investigate the structure and stability of (E) / (Z) isomers of some azobenzene derivatives containing maleimide groups. A special attention has been devoted to the compound (E)-1, (E)-1-(4-(phenyldiazenyl)phenyl)-1H-pyrrole-2,5-dione, for which the available crystallographic experimental data have been used to validate the modeling structures computed at the theoretical levels AM1, PM3, RHF/6-31+G(d,p) and B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p). To this end, the discrepancy between experimental and calculated structural parameters has been ascertained in terms of root-mean-square deviation (RMSD). The quantum calculations at the level RHF/6-31+G(d,p) yield the most accurate results on (E)-1 structure giving a deviation error from crystallographic data of about 5.00% for bond lengths and 0.97% for interatomic angles. The theoretical electronic absorption spectra of azobenzene derivatives of concern have been computed by means of configuration-interaction method (CI) at the level of semi-empirical Hamiltonians (AM1 and PM3). Likewise, the molecular energy spectra, electrostatic potential and some quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) properties of studied molecules have been computed and discussed in the paper.