Abstract: The structures, the binding energies and the thermodynamic properties of formamide and hydroxyacetonitrile(HAN) dimers have been studied by means of the self-consistent ab initio Hartree-Fock and the second-order Mφller-Plesset correlation energy correction methods. The counterpoise procedure was used to check the basis set superposition error(BSSE) of the binding energies. There exist cyclic structures in a formamide dimer(Ⅰ), a HAN dimer(Ⅱ) and their heterodimer(Ⅲ). The corrected binding energies for dimers Ⅰ, Ⅱ and Ⅲ are respectively -45.53, -45.83 and -43.89 kJ/mol at the MP2/aug-cc-p VDZ//HF/aug-cc-p VDZ level. The change of the Gibbs free energies(ΔG) in the process of Ⅰ+Ⅱ^→ 2Ⅲ was predicted to be -2.74 kJ/mol at 298.15 K. Dimer Ⅲ can be spontaneously produced in the mixture of formamide and HAN, which is in agreement with the experimental fact that most cyanohydrins are capable of interacting with dipeptide cyclo-His-Phe(CHP).

Key words: Formamide and hydroxyacetonitrile(HAN) dimer, Intermolecular interaction, Ab initio, Thermodynamic property