Substituent effects on the gas-phase acidity of silane

In a previous paper, the gas-phase acidities of XH{sub n} compounds (X = C, N, O, F, Si, P, S, Cl) were predicted with ab initio wave functions. At the MP4{sup 2} level of theory with extended basis sets acidities for these species were determined to be within 2 kcal/mol of experimental value. In the present work, with 6-31G(d) geometries and full MP4/MC-311++G{sup 6}(3df,2pd) energies, the effects of CH{sub 3}, NH{sub 2}, OH, F, SiH{sub 3}, PH{sub 2}, SH, and Cl on the gas-phase acidity of silane are examined. Only a few related calculations have been carried out. All calculations were performed with Gaussian86, and all structures were verified as minima by diagonalizing the analytically determined hessians. Only the valence electrons were correlated in the perturbation theory calculations.