Origin of the cis-Effect: a Density Functional Theory Study of Doubly Substituted Ethylenes

It is well known that the trans isomer of a doubly substituted ethylene is more stable than its cis counterpart because of the more favorable electrostatic and steric interactions in the trans conformer. Exceptions do exist nevertheless. 1,2-Difluoroethylene is such an example, so is 1,2-dichloroethylene. The unusual stability of the cis isomer of these doubly substituted ethylene compounds is referred to as the cis-effect, whose nature and origin are still not well understood. In this work, using 12 simple molecules, XHC=CHY (X, Y=F, Cl, Br, CN, CH3, OCH3, C2H6), as examples, we perform systematic studies to investigate the validity, nature, and origin of this effect. Among the systems studied, 9 of them exhibit the existence of the cis-effect and the remaining 3 systems are conventional systems used for the comparison purpose. We employ a large number of density functionals and basis sets to confirm its validity. We also use a few well-established analysis tools, such as natural bond orbital (NBO), energy decomposition analysis (EDA), density functional reactivity theory (DFRT), and non-covalent interaction (NCI) analysis, to pinpoint its nature and origin. We found that there exists a weak but attractive non-covalent interaction between the two substituting groups in the cis conformer. We also found that electrostatic, steric, and kinetic energies all play important roles for the validity of the cis-effect. Nevertheless, none of these quantities can be solely used as the single reason governing the general validity of the cis-effect, suggesting that the origin of the effect is complicated and its validity results from compound interactions from a number of interactions. In this work, we employ two-variable explanations to justify its validity through the electrostatic interaction plus steric effect or kinetic energy, with which reasonable fits with R-2=0.86-0.87 were obtained.