Conformers of dehydrogenated glycine isomers.

We report a comprehensive ab initio investigation of the conformers of dehydrogenated glycine radicals using the STO-3G, 3-21G, and aug-cc-pVDZ (aVDZ) basis sets and the UHF and UMP2 (H2 N-CH-COOH and HN-CH2 -COOH) as well as MCSCF and MRCI (H2 N-CH2 -COO) methods via two different conformational search strategies generating initial structures for optimizations by (a) removing H atoms from glycine conformers and (b) scanning torsional angles describing internal rotation along the CC, CN, and CO (except for H2 N-CH2 -COO) bonds of the radicals. We find four H2 N-CH-COOH {InCH , IInCH , IIInCH , IVnCH } and seven HN-CH2 -COOH {IpNH , IIpNH , IIInNH , IVpNH VnNH , VIpNH , VIIpNH } conformers with classical(adiabatic) relative energies of {0.00(0.00), 1.57(1.55), 5.25(5.03), 9.85(9.72)} and {0.00(0.00), 0.78(1.06), 1.93(2.08), 3.34(3.16), 3.39(3.29), 5.00(4.86), 9.27(8.87)} kcal/mol, respectively, obtained with UCCSD(T)-F12b/aug-cc-pVTZ(+UCCSD(T)-F12b/aVDZ ZPE correction) and four H2 N-CH2 -COO {IpCOO , IInCOO , IIIpCOO , IVnCOO } conformers with MRCI-F12+Q/aVDZ(+MRCI/aVDZ ZPE correction) energies of {0.00(0.00), 1.65(1.64), 1.78(1.75), 2.21(2.21)} kcal/mol, where n and p denote C1 and Cs symmetry. The MRCI-F12+Q[UCCSD(T)-F12b] InCH  → IpNH and InCH  → IpCOO classical(adiabatic) isomerization energies are 18.51(17.32)[21.20(20.01)] and 31.88(31.66) kcal/mol, respectively.