Density functional studies on amino-substituted methane and silane

In all-electron density functional calculations on mono- and tetraaminosubstituted methane and silane the coordination around the nitrogen center is found, in complete agreement with experiment, to be less pyramidal in the silicon compounds. The calculated barrier to inversion at nitrogen is only 0.6 kcal/mol in silylamine, while in methylamine it is 5.5 kcal/mol. The larger flexibility is attributed to the greater ionic character of the Si-N bond compared to that of the C-N bond. In tetra(amino)methane, inversion of one amino group leads to a local minimum (calculated inversion barrier: 6.4 kcal/mol), while a corresponding structure (or barrier) does not exist for the silicon compound. Due to the steric influence of the amino groups, the barrier to rotation around the C-N bond is larger in the tetrasubstituted compound (6.4 kcal/mol compared to 2.3 kcal/mol in methylamine). While the average binding energy of the amino groups is similar in both tetra(amino)compounds, the binding energy of the fourth ligand is about 25% larger in the silicon compound for both homolytic and heterolytic bond cleavage. This difference arises from the relative stabilization of the tri(amino)methyl species, due to some n contribution to the C-N bond.