Amine-hydrogen halide complexes: Experimental electric dipole moments and a theoretical decomposition of dipole moments and binding energies

The Stark effect has been observed in the rotational spectra of several gas-phase amine-hydrogen halide complexes and the following electric dipole moments have been determined: H ₃ ¹⁵N-H ³⁵Cl (4.05865 ± 0.00095 D), (CH ₃) ₃ ¹⁵N-H ³⁵Cl (7.128 ± 0.012 D), H ₃ ¹⁵N-H ⁷⁹Br (4.2577 ± 0.0022 D), and (CH ₃) ₃ ¹⁵N-H ⁷⁹Br (8.397 ± 0.014 D). Calculations of the binding energies and electric dipole moments for the full set of complexes R _n(CH ₃) _3-nN-HX (n = 0-3; X = F, Cl, Br) at the MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ level are also reported. The block localized wave function (BLW) energy decomposition method has been used to partition the binding energies into contributions from electrostatic, exchange, distortion, polarization, and charge-transfer terms. Similarly, the calculated dipole moments have been decomposed into distortion, polarization, and charge-transfer components. The complexes studied range from hydrogen-bonded systems to proton-transferred ion pairs, and the total interaction energies vary from 7 to 17 kcal/mol across the series. The individual energy components show a much wider variation than this, but cancellation of terms accounts for the relatively narrow range of net binding energies. For both the hydrogen-bonded complexes and the proton-transferred ion pairs, the electrostatic and exchange terms have magnitudes that increase with the degree of proton transfer but are of opposite sign, leaving most of the net stabilization to arise from polarization and charge transfer. In all of the systems studied, the polarization terms contribute the most to the induced dipole moment, followed by smaller but still significant contributions from charge transfer. A significant contribution to the induced moment of the ion pairs also arises from distortion of the HX monomer.