Comparative vibrational spectroscopic study of 1,3-diacetylbenzene and 2,6-diacetylpyridine aided with density functional calculation

Comparative studies of the Raman and infrared spectra of 1,3-diacetylbenzene and 2,6-diacetylpyridine have been made. The spectra are interpreted with the aid of normal mode analysis following full structure optimization based on the density functional method using different levels of theories and various basis sets combination. The unscaled DFT LSDA frequencies approximate the experimental ones in much more uniform fashion than B3LYP or B3PW91 theories do. Nevertheless the use of overall scale factor leads to further significant improvement with less than 2% error. The scaled B3PW91 6-31G result is best, even though LSDA 6-311G frequencies are superior to the B3PW91 ones before scaling. While making complete assignments of vibrational wavenumbers on the basis of potential energy distribution, some interesting observation in the vibrational spectra of these two molecules have been noticed. Instances of Fermi resonances between fundamentals and some combination modes of vibration have also been ascertained. Following the quantum chemical calculation optimized geometries of the both molecules are predicted. The theoretical global minimum energy calculation helps to find the structural symmetries of the molecules.