Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.112, No.40, 10046-10052, 2008
Molecular structure of phthalocyaninatotin(II) studied by gas-phase electron diffraction and high-level quantum chemical calculations
The molecular structure ofphthalocyaninatotin(II), Sn(II)Pc, is determined by density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP) calculations using various basis sets and gas-phase electron diffraction (GED). The quantum chemical calculations show that Sn(II)Pc has C-4 nu symmetry, and this symmetry is consistent with the structure obtained by GED at 427 degrees C. GED locates the Sri atom at h(Sn) = 112.8(48) pm above the plane defined by the four isoindole N atoms, and a N-Sn bond length of 226.0(10) pm is obtained. Calculation at the B3LYP/cc-pVTZ/cc-pVTZ-PP(Sn) level of theory gives h(Sn) = 114.2 pm and a N-Sn bond length of 229.4 pm. The phthalocyanine (Pc) macrocycle has a slightly nonplanar structure. Generally, the GED results are in good agreement with the X-ray structures and with the computed structure; however, the comparability between these three methods has been questioned. The N-Sn bond lengths determined by GED and X-ray are significantly shorter than those from the B3LYP predictions. Similar trends have been found for C-Sn bonds for conjugated organometallic tin compounds. Computed vibrational frequencies give five low frequencies in the range of 18-54 cm(-1), which indicates a flexible molecule.