Determination of force fields for two conformers of nitromethane by CNDO/force method

Abstract

CNDO/Force method is used to evaluate the redundancy free internal valence force fields for two conformers of nitromethane. The initial force field is set up by taking the interaction and bending force constants from this method and transferring the stretching force constants from the force fields of chemically related molecules. The final force field is obtained by refining the initial force field using vibrational frequencies of isotopic speciesviz CH₃NO₂, CD₃NO₂, CH₃¹⁵NO₂ and CH₃N¹⁸O₂. The final force field thus obtained is reasonable on the basis of frequency fit and potential energy distribution. The barrier to internal rotation is found to be 0.048 kcal mol^-1.