Molecular Modeling of Vanadium-Oxo Complexes. A Comparison of Quantum and Classical Methods

A force field for vanadium-oxos was developed and tested with a variety of complexes with coordination numbers of 5 or 6 and formal oxidations states of +4 or +5 on the metal. Similarly, a semiempirical quantum mechanical method for transition metals was extended to vanadium. In this research soft and hard ligands were studied, as were ligands coordinated through single, multiple, and dative bonds. Despite the diversity of vanadium coordination chemistry, generally good modeling is achieved in a fraction of the time with less computational resources using molecular mechanics and semiempirical quantum mechanics. The L4VO and L5VO groups were emphasized given their prevalence and importance. In general, the predictive ability was superior for the former structural motif. The combination of molecular mechanics and semiempirical quantum calculations provide an effective and efficient tool for analysis of the steric and electronic energy differences between isomers.