Modeling the weak hydrogen bonding of pyrrole and dichloromethane through Raman and DFT study

Raman spectra of neat pyrrole (C4H5N) and its binary mixtures with dichloromethane (CH2Cl2, DCM) with varying mole fractions of C4H5N from 0.1 to 0.9 were recorded in order to monitor the influence of molecular interaction on spectral features of selected vibrational bands of pyrrole in the region 600-1600 cm(-1). Only 1369 cm(-1) vibrational band of pyrrole shows a significant change in its peak position in going from neat pyrrole to the complexes. The 1369 cm(-1) band shows (similar to 6 cm(-1)) blue shift upon dilution and the corresponding linewidth shows the maximum shift at C = 0.5 mole fraction of pyrrole upon dilution which clearly indicates that the concentration fluctuation model plays major role. Quantum chemical calculation using density functional theory (DFT) and ab-initio (MP2 and HF) methods were performed employing high level basis set, 6-311++G(d,p) to obtain the ground state geometry of neat pyrrole and its complexes with DCM in gas phase. Basis set superimpose error (BSSE) correction was also introduced by using the counterpoise method. In order to account for the solvent effect on vibrational features and changes in optimized structural parameters of pyrrole, polarizable continuum model (PCM) (bulk solvations) and PCM (specific plus bulk solvations) calculations were performed. Two possible configurations of pyrrole + DCM complex have been predicted by B3LYP and HF methods, whereas the MP2 method gave only single configuration in which H atom of DCM is bonded to pi ring of the pyrrole molecule. This affects significantly the ring vibrations of pyrrole molecule, which was also observed in our experimental results.