JM: I looked at all of the molecules in the aniline set and calculated the average of the impropers, most of them are around 30 and only one of them is planar
Image ModifiedImage Modifieddoes this mean we need to select more molecules or the optimization is not giving a full picture?
DLM: Here’s Chris, we are looking through JM’s aniline set structures and the improper angle for the optimized geometry for the nitrogen.
CB: The central one or the top one?
JM: Sorry, I didn’t highlight the nitrogens
CB: So, that’s only in cases of substituents with two nitrogens, we can still look at the others, so the set is for a wide spectrum of electron withdrawing substituents with the aniline fixed on one end?
JM: Yeah, that’s right.
CB: So, the electronic structure calculations are at a decent level of theory that show flattening/pyramidilization, which is what?
DLM: This is with our current level of theory we are using for FF fits.
PB: Yeah, B3LYP-D3BJ/DZVP
CB: Okay, so this is a level of theory which should show the correct pyramidalization within a stone’s throw, and these are all minimizations right?
JM: Yeah.
CB: So, the terminal amine is allowed to get its most favoured level of pyramidalization, and this is where we are finding that except one case of flat, rest all are pyramidal
DLM: So, this structure has 3 nitrogens and we are not sure for which the improper was calculated.
JM: So, this is not like grid optimization where I had the indices and I used openeye to check which nitrogen is invertible in the molecule and I calculated for the first one I encountered, that was a mistake, will correct it.
DLM: That’s okay.
CB: So, firstly this seems a bit counterintuitive to me, the pyramidalization of nitrogen is sensitive or should be sensitive to how conjugated it is and that should be affected by the substituent in the para position.
N(+)#N is the most EWG and I am expecting a continuous scanning of the pyramidalization, most EDG are supposed to be highly pyramidal and most EWG should be planar.
OSO-CF3 is EWG and it has 23.8 deg, aldehyde etc are also EWG.
DLM: I think there are two things here,
1. most EWGs have values of around 20-25, and most EDGs have 30+
2. another issue is having a broad flat minima spanning -20 or below to 20+ degrees and depends on where the minima lies.
That’s probably how some of these are looking like.
Image ModifiedCB: I think you’re right, -25 to +25 seems to be the range. All EDGs have highest values and EWGs have lower 20’s, I am wondering why there aren’t many other lower 20’s or more flat ones from the list of EWGs.
On this slide at the bottom a pyridine with -NH-CH3 at the bottom is supposed to be flat.
Having the difference between top row center, which is flat, top row right hand side which doesn't want to go flat, and then the bottom row left hand side (flat bottom) that’s the spectrum I want our WBO interpolated improper to cover.
JM, do you have the corresponding wbo values for these structures you’re showing? Can we find anything which has a well behaved relationship between the improper angle and wbo, and I was proposing to use the minima with the para substituted EWGs, whether planar, pyramidal and in between.
DLM: I think where we are right now is we are about to run a set of 2D scans, and then we said we should enumerate a set of substituents and pick up a set of molecules we bother to run the 2D scans.
JM: Yeah, exactly.
CB: Okay, I want to throw a strawman proposal, so far what I have seen is the N(+)#N is one extreme, planar, and at the other end of the spectrum we have phenoxide, -O-, which is pyramidal, in between you got some other, and the pyridine with the -NH-CH3, these are all cheap computations, I didn’t see anything in between that’s like slightly planar, we have the long list of substituents and I think we can run them quickly so that we may sample in the region of 0 to 20 degrees.
DLM: We’re talking about the Nitrogen and ring wbo, right?
CB: Yeah, aniline nitrogen and the ring.
JM: I didn’t calculate that, just to clarify do you want the AM1 wbo or from QM?
CB: I want both actually, I have a mental mapping of AM1 to QM wbos.
DLM: Visualization I am wishing I could have is a 2D plot, x-axis has AM1 bond order and y-axis has the average of impropers you are showing now, and each point is color-coded on how much electron withdrawing it is.
CB: Sure, Taft-Hammett parameter gives a value for the sigma withdrawing and pi withdrawing, we are particularly interested in pi-withdrawing if you have got a choice.
DLM: I would say we can have two plots with AM1 wbo and the second one with QM wbo, and we can pick molecules that follow linear correlation and outliers for our 2D scans, also planarity. If there is a good correlation then we pick less molecules otherwise more.
CB: JM, if the N(+)#N has a planar structure and yet nitro another strong EWG is showing us 24 degrees, so we should poke more substituents to sample around 0 to 20 degrees.
DLM: I think if we have an idea of the computation time for the 2D scans and if it is cheap then we should go ahead and do that instead of theorizing without numbers.
SB: Yeah, I completely agree, we have a subset of the dataset with 12 2D scans in the queue and we can add more to that.
DLM: Sounds good.
CB: So, we were hoping to get 0 to 37 degrees and we go more in the 20 to 37 range. We do have something to look at here,
- choosing substituents with planarity we have the values here
- another aspect is to look at the range of WBOs
DLM: Okay, what this means is in the 12 molecules you picked for 2D scan make sure you have the flat one, something between 20-25, 25-30, etc., and run them, and while they’re running do the analysis of wbo versus pyramidalization.
JM/SB: Okay, sounds good.