Karton, Schreiner, and Martin have benchmarked the heats of formation of some Platonic Solids and related hydrocarbons.1 The molecules examined are tetrahedrane 1, cubane 2, dodecahedrane 3, trisprismane 4, pentaprismane 5, and octahedrane 6.
The optimized structures (B3LYP-D3BJ/def2-TZVPP) of these compounds are shown in Figure 1.
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
Figure 1. B3LYP-D3BJ/def2-TZVPP optimized geometries of 1-6.
Using the W1-F12 and W2-F12 composite methods, the estimated the heats of formation of these hydrocarbons are listed in Table 1. Experimental values are available only for 2 and 3; the computed values are off by about 2 kcal mol-1, which the authors argue is just outside the error bars of the computations. They suggest that the experiments might need to be revisited.
Table 1. Heats of formation (kcal mol-1) of 1-6.
|
compound |
ΔHf (comp) |
ΔHf (expt) |
|
1 |
128.57 |
|
|
2 |
144.78 |
142.7 ± 1.2 |
|
3 |
20.18 |
22.4 ± 1 |
|
4 |
132.84 |
|
|
5 |
119.42 |
|
|
6 |
63.08 |
|
They conclude with a comparison of strain energies computed using isogyric, isodesmic, and homodesmotic reactions with a variety of computational methods. Somewhat disappointingly, most DFT methods have appreciable errors compared with the W1-F12 results, and the errors vary depend on the chemical reaction employed. However, the double hybrid method DSD-PBEP86-D3BJ consistently reproduces the W1-F12 results.
References
(1) Karton, A.; Schreiner, P. R.; Martin, J. M. L. "Heats of formation of platonic hydrocarbon cages by means of high-level thermochemical procedures," J. Comput. Chem. 2016, 37, 49-58, DOI: 10.1002/jcc.23963.
InChIs
1: InChI=1S/C4H4/c1-2-3(1)4(1)2/h1-4H
InChIKey=FJGIHZCEZAZPSP-UHFFFAOYSA-N
2: InChI=1S/C8H8/c1-2-5-3(1)7-4(1)6(2)8(5)7/h1-8H
InChIKey=TXWRERCHRDBNLG-UHFFFAOYSA-N
3: InChI=1S/C20H20/c1-2-5-7-3(1)9-10-4(1)8-6(2)12-11(5)17-13(7)15(9)19-16(10)14(8)18(12)20(17)19/h1-20H
InChIKey=OOHPORRAEMMMCX-UHFFFAOYSA-N
4: InChI=1S/C6H6/c1-2-3(1)6-4(1)5(2)6/h1-6H
InChIKey=RCJOMOPNGOSMJU-UHFFFAOYSA-N
5: InChI=1S/C10H10/c1-2-5-3(1)7-8-4(1)6(2)10(8)9(5)7/h1-10H
InChIKey=TXSUZIHPJIZTJT-UHFFFAOYSA-N
6: InChI=1S/C12H12/c1-2-4-6-5(11-7(1)10(4)11)3(1)9-8(2)12(6)9/h1-12H
InChIKey=DUDCBTWUEJEMGD-UHFFFAOYSA-N
