Gas phase structures of peroxides: experiments and computational problems

Gas-phase structures of several organic and inorganic peroxides X-O-O-X and X-O-O-X', which have been determined experimentally by gas electron diffraction and/or microwave spectroscopy, are discussed. The OO bond length in these peroxides varies from 1.481(8) Å in Me3 SiOOSiMe3 to 1.214(2) Å in FOOF and the dihedral angle ϕ(XO-OX) between 0° in HC(O)O-OH and near 180° in Bu(t) O-OBu(t) . Some of the peroxides cause problems for quantum chemistry, since several computational methods fail to reproduce the experimental structures. Extreme examples are MeO-OMe and FO-OF. In the case of MeO-OMe only about half of the more than 100 computational methods reported in the literature reproduce the experimentally determined double-minimum shape of the torsional potential around the OO bond correctly. For FO-OF only a small number of close to 200 computational methods reproduce the OO and OF bond lengths better than ±0.02 Å.