Experimental confirmation of the Badger–Bauer rule in the protonated methanol clusters: weak hydrogen bond formation as a measure of terminal OH acidity in hydrogen bond networks

Abstract

We report a linear correlation between the OH stretch frequency shift of the protonated methanol cluster, H⁺(MeOH)_n, upon the π-hydrogen bond formation with benzene and the enthalpy change in clustering of H⁺(MeOH)_n to H⁺(MeOH)_n+1. This result suggests a new method to explore hydrogen bond strength in hydrogen bond networks.