In the crystal structure of potassium hydrogen dichloromaleate there are two short hydrogen bonds of 2.44 Å. The `heavy-atom' structure is centrosymmetric (space group P\bar 1) with centers of symmetry in the middle of the O—O bonds, suggesting centered hydrogen bonds. However, earlier unconventional types of refinements of the extensive neutron data taken at 30, 90, 135, 170 and 295 K demonstrated that the H atoms are actually non-centered in the hydrogen bonds, although the environment is centrosymmetric. Traditionally it has been assumed that the hydrogen distribution adopts the same symmetry as the environment. Reviewing these unusual results it was considered of great interest to verify that the non-centered locations of the H atoms are reasonable from an energy point of view. Quantum mechanical calculations have now been carried out for the potential-energy surfaces (PES) for both the centered and non-centered locations of the H atoms. In all cases the non-centered positions are closer to the energy minima in the PES than the centered positions, and this result confirms that the structure is best described with non-centered H atoms. There is virtually perfect agreement between the quantum-mechanically derived reaction coordinates (QMRC) and the bond-order reaction coordinates (BORC) derived using Pauling's bond-order concept together with the principle of conservation of bond order. [Part I: Olovsson et al. (2001). Acta Cryst. B57, 311–316; Part II: Olovsson et al. (2002). Acta Cryst. B58, 627–631.]
Unraveling the structural and chemical features of biological short hydrogen bonds
