Influence of ring size on the strength of carbon bonding complexes between anions and perfluorocycloalkanes

In this paper we combine high level theoretical calculations (RI-MP2/def2-TZVP) with Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) anaEysis to demonstrate the importance of carbon bonding in cydobutane rings. The higher abdity of four-membered rings to interact with electron rich molecules is rationahzed using several computational took, including molecular electrostatic potential surfaces, energetic and geometric features of the complexes and atoms in molecules analysis. We have found that the sohd state architectures of severaE X-ray structures, retrieved from the CSD searches, strongly support the theoretical calculations. In particular, carbon bonding interactions are quite common in nitro-substituted cubanes.