A theoretical study of 17O, 14N and 2H nuclear quadrupole coupling tensors in the real crystalline structure of acetaminophen

A systematic computational investigation was carried out to characterize the 17O, 14N and 2H electric field gradient, EFG, tensors in the acetaminophen real crystalline structure. To include the hydrogen bonding effects in the calculations, the most probable interacting molecules with the target molecule in the crystalline phase were considered through the various molecular clusters. The calculations were performed with the B3LYP method and 6-311++G∗∗ and 6-311+G∗ standard basis sets using the Gaussian 98 suite of programs. Calculated EFG tensors were used to evaluate the 17O, 14N, and 2H nuclear quadrupole resonance, NQR, parameters in acetaminophen crystalline structure, which are in good agreement with the available experimental data. The difference between the calculated NQR parameters of the monomer and molecular clusters shows how much hydrogen bonding interactions affect the EFG tensors of each nucleus. These results indicate that both O-H⋯O and N-H⋯O hydrogen bonding have major influence on the NQR parameters. Moreover, the quantum chemical calculation indicated that the intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions play an essential role in determining the relative orientation of quadrupole coupling principal components in the molecular frame axes.