The nature of interactions in nicotinamide crystal

Abstract

In this study, we analyze the nature of intermolecular interactions in nicotinamide complexes appearing in conformations found in the crystal structure, including many-body effects. In doing so, we employ symmetry-adapted perturbation theory based on density functional theory description of monomers, and we perform the many-body variational-perturbational interaction energy decomposition. The principal finding of this study is that the stability of nicotinamide complexes is a complicated interplay of four (large in magnitude) interaction-energy components, i.e. induction, dispersion, electrostatic and exchange repulsion. However, the last two contributions cancel each other out to a large extent. In the case of considered three-body complexes, the nonadditivity effects are found to be not important. Based on the results of topological analysis of charge densities we characterized also the properties of short H ⋯ H contact and identified it as a weak noncovalent closed shell interaction.

Keywords: Density functional theory; Intermolecular interactions; Nicotinamide crystal; Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory.