Theoretical and crystallographic study of edge-to-face aromatic interactions between pyridine moieties and benzene

The T-shaped aromatic non-covalent interaction involving pyridine and benzene rings is studied by means of RI-MP2/aug-cc-pVTZ ab initio calculations. They indicate that the participation of the nitrogen atom of pyridine in a variety of interactions or bonding (coordinated to a metal, hydrogen bonding, N-oxide derivative or protonation) affects the edge-to-face aromatic interaction with benzene. This long distance effect has been studied using the ‘atoms-in-molecules’ theory and the Molecular Interaction Potential with polarization (MIPp) partition scheme. Experimental evidence for such interactions has been obtained from the Cambridge Structural Database.