Structural, electronic properties and intramolecular hydrogen bonding of substituted 2-[(E)-imino methyl] benzenethiol in ground and first excited state by quantum chemical methods

Quantum chemical calculations of geometric structure, the intramolecular hydrogen bond, harmonic vibrational frequencies, NMR spin–spin coupling constants, and physical properties such as chemical potential and chemical hardness of the 2-(E)-imino methyl benzenethiol and its nineteen derivatives were carried out using density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP/6-311++G**) method in the gas phase and the water solution. Furthermore, the topological properties of the electron density distributions for S–H···N intramolecular hydrogen bond have been analyzed in terms of the Bader’s theory of atoms in molecules (AIM). Natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis also performed for better understanding the nature of intramolecular interactions, the results of analysis by quantum theory of AIM and NBO method fairly supported the DFT results. Besides, MEP was performed by the DFT method. On the other hand, the aromaticity of the formed ring has been measured using several well-established indices of aromaticity such as nucleus-independent chemical shift, harmonic oscillator models of the aromaticity, para-delocalization index, average two-center indices, and aromatic fluctuation index. Also, the excited-state properties of intramolecular hydrogen bonding in these systems have been investigated theoretically using the time-dependent DFT method.