Vibrational spectroscopy investigation using ab initio and density functional theory analysis on the structure of 3,4-dimethylbenzaldehyde

The FT-IR and FT-Raman spectra of 3,4-dimethylbenzaldehyde (3,4-DMB) has been recorded in the region 4000-400 and 3500-100cm(-1), respectively. The optimized geometry, frequency and intensity of the vibrational bands of 3,4-DMB were obtained by the ab initio and DFT levels of theory with complete relaxation in the potential energy surface using 6-31G(d,p) basis set. The harmonic vibrational frequencies were calculated and the scaled values have been compared with experimental FT-IR and FT-Raman spectra. The observed and the calculated frequencies are found to be in good agreement. The experimental spectra also coincide satisfactorily with those of theoretically constructed bar type spectrograms. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.