Theoretical studies on the dimerization of substituted paraphenylenediamine radical cations

Organic radical cations form dicationic dimers in solution, observed experimentally as diamagnetic species in temperature-dependent EPR and low temperature UV/Vis spectroscopy. Dimerization of paraphenylenediamine, N,N-dimethyl-paraphenylenediamine and 2,3,5,6-tetramethyl-paraphenylenediamine radical cation in ethanol/diethylether mixture was investigated theoretically according to geometry, energetics and UV/Vis spectroscopy. Density Functional Theory including dispersion correction describes stable dimers after geometry optimization with conductor-like screening model of solvation and inclusion of the counter-ion. Energy corrections were done on double-hybrid Density Functional Theory with perturbative second-order correlation (B2PLYP-D) including basis set superposition error (BSSE), and multireference Møller-Plesset second-order perturbation theory method (MRMP2) based on complete active space method (CASSCF(2,2)) single point calculation, respectively. All three dication π-dimers exhibit long multicenter π-bonds around 2.9 ± 0.1 Å with strongly interacting orbitals. Substitution with methyl groups does not influence the dimerization process substantially. Dispersion interaction and electrostatic attraction from counter-ion play an important role to stabilize the dication dimers in solution. Dispersion-corrected double hybrid functional B2PLYP-D and CASSCF(2,2) can describe the interaction energetics properly.Vertical excitations were computed with Tamm-Dancoff approximation for time-dependent Density Functional Theory (TDA-DFT) at the B3LYP level with the cc-pVTZ basis set including ethanol solvent molecules explicitly. A strong interaction of the counter-ion and the solvent ethanol with the monomeric species is observed, whereas in the dimers the strong interaction of both radical cation species is the dominating factor for the additional peak in UV/Vis spectra.

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► Radical cation dimerization of p-phenylenediamine is investigated theoretically.
► CASSCF and DFT-D shows two strongly interacting electrons on fourteen atoms.
► B2LYP-D gives dimerization energies properly.
► Monomer interacts with solvent, in dimer the two monomers interact with each other.
► UV/Vis is modeled well by TDA-B3LYP vertical transitions.