The structure and binding energies of the van der Waals complexes of Ar and N2 with phenol and its cation, studied by high level ab initio and density functional theory calculations.

We have investigated, using both ab initio and density functional theory methods, the minimum energy structures and corresponding binding energies of the van der Waals complexes between phenol and argon or the nitrogen molecule, and the corresponding complexes involving the phenol cation. Structures were obtained at the MP2 level using a large basis, and the corresponding energies were corrected for basis set superposition error (BSSE), higher order electron correlation effects, and for basis set size. The structures of the global minima were further refined for the effects of BSSE and the corresponding binding energies were evaluated. For each neutral species, we find only a single true minimum, pi bonded for argon and OH bonded for nitrogen. For both cationic species, we find that the OH-bonded complex is preferred over other minima which we have identified as having Ar or N(2) between exogeneous atoms. The ab initio calculations are generally in excellent agreement with experimental binding energies and rotational constants. We find that the B3LYP functional is particularly poor at describing these complexes, while a density functional theory (DFT) method with an empirical correction for dispersive interactions (DFT-D) is very successful, as are some of the new functionals proposed by Zhao and Truhlar [J. Phys. Chem. A 109, 5656 (2005); J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2, 1009 (2006); Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 7, 2701 (2005); J. Phys. Chem. A 108, 6908 (2004)]. Both the ab initio and DFT-D methods accurately predict the intermolecular vibrational modes.