Computational study of the substituent effect of halogenated fused-ring heteroaromatics on halogen bonding.

Halogen bonding (XB) has been applied in many fields from crystal engineering to medicinal chemistry. Compared with the well-studied XB of simple halogenated aromatics, little research has been done on the XB of halogenated fused-ring heteroaromatics, a prevalent substructure in organic compounds. With 1H-pyrrolo[3,2-b]pyridines (PPs) as examples of novel fused-ring heteroaromatics with hydrogen bond donor and acceptor and XB donor, the XB formed by the halogenated heteroaromatics was explored in this study. With 4 different substituents, viz., –CH3, –NH2, –F, and –CONH2, at different positions, 339 derivatives of brominated PP (Br-PP) were designed for calculating their electrostatic potential of the σ-hole of the halogen atom (VS,max) and binding energy with ammonia as XB acceptor (Eint) at M06-2X/6-311++G(d,p) level by PCM model in dichloromethane. The calculated VS,max values ranging from −1.3 to 35.1 kcal/mol and the calculated Eint ranging from −0.82 to −2.37 kcal/mol demonstrated that the XB is complicated and highly tunable. Noticeably, the electron-withdrawing substituents, especially at ortho-position, do not always increase the values of VS,max, while the electron-donating substituents do not always decrease VS,max. Similar results were observed from the calculation on 339 iodinated PPs at M06-2X/6-311++G(d,p) level. The complexity of the XB formed by the halogenated fused ring heteroaromatics indicated a great potential of tuning its strength by different substituents at different positions and revealed a necessity of quantum chemistry calculation for predicting the XB. Graphical abstract