Torsional potential of biphenyl: Ab initio calculations with the Dunning correlation consisted basis sets

The internal rotational barrier heights of biphenyl were calculated with the Dunning correlation consisted basis sets (up to cc-pVQZ, 960 basis functions) and the electron correlation correction by the second order Møller-Plesset method (MP2). Although previous Hartree-Fock (HF) and MP2 calculations showed that the internal rotational barrier height at 0° (ΔE₀) was substantially larger than that at 90° (ΔE₉₀), our MP2/cc-pVQZ//MP2/6-31G* calculations showed that ΔE₀ (2.28 kcal/mol) was close to ΔE₉₀ (2.13 kcal/mol), which agreed with the estimation from experimental measurements. The calculations of benzene dimers suggested that the dispersion interaction increased the relative stability of the coplanar conformer. The basis sets employed in the previous calculations were not large enough to evaluate the attractive dispersion interaction. The underestimation of the stabilization of the coplanar conformer by the dispersion interaction would be one of the reasons for the overestimation of ΔE₀ in the previous calculations.