A study of van der Waals complexes of 1,2-dichloroethane in paraffin oil by FTIR spectroscopy and ab initio calculations

Abstract

© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Weak molecular interactions of 1,2-dichloroethane dissolved in paraffin oil were investigated by FTIR spectroscopy. Occurrence of isosbestic points in the spectra along with the factor analysis showed that DCE...DCE dimers are formed in solutions at DCE concentrations between 7 and 15 vol.%. It was found that both trans and gauche conformers are involved in the complexation, forming a tg-dimer. From the spectra collected at 200-222 K, the complexation enthalpy was determined: -4.2 ± 0.4 kcal mol- 1. The equilibrium geometry of tg-dimer and the vibrational frequencies were determined from the density functional calculations performed at B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) and 6-31G(d,p) levels. The C-C bonds of the two molecules involved in tg-dimers were found to be oriented nearly perpendicular to each other. The complexation energy calculated using 6-31G(d,p) and 6-311++G(d,p) basis sets was found to be -1.59 and -1.52 kcal mol- 1, respectively.