Equilibrium structures and vibrational assignments for isoamyl alcohol and tert-amyl alcohol: A density functional study

We have calculated the vibrational spectra of isoamyl alcohol and of tert-amyl alcohol using Density Functional Theory (DFT) with the Becke-3 Lee Yang Parr (B3LYP) functional and a 6-311+G** atomic basis set. The energies of the conformers were also calculated with ab initio Perturbation Theory of second (MP2) and fourth order restricted to single, double and quadruple excitations (MP4 SDQ) with the same basis set. We found rather complicated equilibria of four conformations in each case, counting only those with appreciable abundancies. PED data were compared with GAUSSVIEW animations. The calculated wavenumbers agree rather well with the experimental ones when the gauche-trans conformer is assumed as the most important one for isoamyl alcohol, and the gauchegauche one for tert-amyl alcohol. However, some of the experimental bands had to be assigned also to other conformers, indicating their presence in the equilibrium mixture. Due to sterical reasons both the CO and the OH bonds appear to be weaker in the tertiary alcohol, considering the wavenumbers of the CO and OH bond stretching vibrations. The bond lengths point into the same direction, however, the OH bond in the tertiary alcohol is only slightly longer than that in the primary alcohol.