The concepts of absolute electronegativity, X, and absolute hardness, g, are incorporated into molecular orbital theory. A graphic and concise definition of hardness is given as twice the energy gap between the highest occupied molecular orbital and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital. Useful correlations can now be made between chemical behavior, visible-UV absorption spectra, optical polarizability, ionization potentials, and electron affinities.The concepts of absolute electronegativity, X, and absolute hardness, 71, have recently been introduced (1,2 [2]The value of X, equal to 4 eV, is shown with changed sign as a dashed horizontal line in Fig. 1 (see ref. 7). It falls exactly at the energy midpoint between the HOMO and the LUMO. Negative X is equal to the electronic chemical potential, A (1).The value of q, equal to 6 eV, is shown as a vertical dashed line. The energy gap between the HOMO and LUMO is equal to 227.The above refers to a system where the HOMO is filled. Radicals, where the frontier orbital (SOMO) is half-filled, are somewhat different. Fig. 1 shows the orbital energy diagram for a radical where I = 10 eV and A = +2 eV. The energy of the SOMO (equal to -10 eV), X (= 6 eV), and q (= 4 eV) are shown on the figure. The (unknown) energy of the LUMO plays no role. The quantity (I -A) = 227 is just the mean repulsion energy of two electrons in the SOMO (8).Apart from the radical cases, it would appear that Fig. 1 Whether a given molecule is a Lewis acid or a base is determined by its X value. Large X values characterize acids and small X values are found for bases. For any two molecules, electrons will be partially transferred from the one of low X to that of high X (electrons flow from high chemical potential to low chemical potential). In Fig. 1 the radical will act as a Lewis acid toward the molecule.The general acid-base reaction can be treated by perturbation theory, as pioneered by Dewar (9) and Fukui and Fujimoto (10). The three main bonding interactions between closed-shell molecules or ions are (i) electrostatic, (ii) delocalization, and (iii) polarization. Delocalization occurs by partial transfer of electrons from the filled orbitals of one molecule to the empty orbitals of the second. For molecules of similar electronegativities, it will occur in both directions.An approximate expression for the delocalization energy, considering only the frontier orbitals, is given by(A1 -I2) (A2 -I) [3] where the f factors are exchange integrals of the perturbation Hamiltonian over the interacting 4Os. Clearly, the energy lowering is greater if A is large for both molecules and I is small. This means that both energy gaps should be small for best bonding, or both molecules should be soft. This is part of the reason for the principle of hard and soft acids and bases (3). Another contribution to the added stability of a soft acid-soft base complex comes from the mutual polarization effect. A small energy gap favors easy polarization for both molecules. Note, however,
8440The publication c...