Theoretical study of the solvent effect on the aromaticity of benzene: a NICS analysis

Nucleus-independent chemical shift (NICS) quantities for benzene-benzene and benzene-water species were obtained and are discussed in gas phase and in solution. Besides standard polarizable continuum model (PCM) calculations, sequential Monte Carlo/quantum mechanics (S-MC/QM) were also performed. Benzene was shown to be slightly more aromatic in condensate phase when we considered the average solvent configuration (ASEC) approach with explicit molecules.