P. Nagy, Douglas A. Smith, G. Alagona
1994
Citations
0
Influential Citations
52
Citations
Journal
The Journal of Physical Chemistry
Abstract
Simple carboxylic acids, R-COOH (R=methyl, ethyl, vinyl, phenyl, and hydroxyphenyl), and the monohydrates of acetic and benzoic acids have been studied in the gas phase using ab initio quantum chemical methods. HF/6-31G * and MP2/6-31G * geometry optimizations prove that calculations at the MP2 level reproduce well the available experimental gas-phase structures. In the most stable conformation of the free acids the acid hydrogen is syn to the carbonyl oxygen. Conformers with an anti acid hydrogen are local energy minima for the aliphatic acids and for the nonplanar benzoic acid; however, arrangements with an sp 2 hybridized β carbon and with a planar heavy atom skeleton correspond to transition structures