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Merging the Energy Decomposition Analysis with the Interacting Quantum Atoms Approach

M. Gimferrer, Sergi Danés, D. Andrada, P. Salvador

Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 2023

16 citations

Abstract

Energy decomposition analysis (EDA) is a well-established approach to dissect the interaction energy into chemically sound components. Despite the inherent requirement of reference states has been a long-standing object of debate, the direct relation with the molecular orbital analysis helps in building up predictive models. The alternative molecular energy decomposition schemes that decompose the total energy into atomic and diatomic contributions, such as the interacting quantum atoms (IQA), has no external reference requirements and also the intra- and intermolecular interactions are treated on equal footing. However, a connection with heuristic chemical models are limited, bringing about a somewhat narrower predictive power. While efforts to reconcile the bonding picture obtained by both methodologies have been discussed in the past, a synergic combination of them has not been tackled yet. Herein, we present the use of IQA decomposition of the individual terms arising from the EDA in the context of intermolecular interactions, henceforth EDA–IQA. The method is applied to a molecular set covering a wide range of interaction types, including hydrogen bonding, charge–dipole, π–π and halogen interactions. We find that the electrostatic energy from EDA, entirely seen as intermolecular, leads to meaningful and non-negligible intra-fragment contributions upon IQA decomposition, originated from charge penetration. EDA–IQA also affords the decomposition of the Pauli repulsion…

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