The crystalline enol of 1,3-cyclohexanedione and its complex with benzene: Vibrational spectra, simulation of structure and dynamics and evidence for cooperative hydrogen bonding

The inelastic incoherent neutron scattering spectra of 1, 3-cyclohexanedione (CHD) in its crystalline enol form and its cyclamer complexes with benzene and benzene-d ₆ are compared with each other, with IR and Raman spectra and with the results of calculations using density functional theory (DFT). The crystal packing of the CHD enol is a linear hydrogen-bonded chain with conjugated donor and acceptor groups analogous to that found in peptide hydrogen bonding. The benzene complex is a closed hexameric hydrogen-bonded cycle. A DFT treatment is applied to the full hexamer of the benzene complex. The CHD chain is treated as a series of finite linear clusters by DFT, while the infinite one-dimensional chain and the three-dimensional crystal are treated by periodic DFT. Comparison is made with both the observed crystal structures and the vibrational spectra. The very good to excellent agreement of the computed vibrational spectra with experiment demonstrates that the models and computational treatments used are reliable. The theoretical treatment of the linear chain clusters exhibits a continuous change in structure with increasing chain length, converging to values near the observed structure. Emphasis is placed on the cooperative nature of hydrogen bonding in CHD as revealed by these systematic trends. The ability of DFT methods to treat hydrogen bonding in solids appears to be roughly as accurate as the crystal structure determinations.