Molecular anions of polydeprotonated naphthalenes: An investigation on the metastability and deprotonation energies using nuclear-charge stabilization method

摘要

The dianions and trianions of doubly- and triply-deprotonated naphthalenes are investigated using density functional theory (DFT) computations employing hybrid, long-range, and dispersion corrected exchange-correlation functionals. The investigated polyanionic species are found to be metastable with negative electron affinity and are further treated using a nuclear-charge stabilization method. The tunneling lifetimes of these anionic species were estimated to be a few femtoseconds. Notably, the deprotonated energies (DPEs) of naphthalene leading to the formation of triply deprotonated trianions are observed to be affected by the metastability of the dianions and trianions. For the deprotonation of doubly deprotonated dianions, the DPE calculated using the improved methodology based on the stabilization method is found to be nearly 100 kcal/mol more than that computed using the conventional procedure. Though the various DFT approximations employed are in a good agreement for predicting the lifetimes of the metastable species but in the prediction of electron-affinities and deprotonation energies, the dispersion-corrected DFT-D3 significantly disagrees with the long-range corrected DFT methods employing cam-B3LYP and omega B97XD exchange-correlation functionals. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.