Accurate Experimental and Theoretical Enthalpies of Association of TiCl4 with Typical Lewis Bases Used in Heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta Catalysis

Adducts of TiCl4 with Lewis bases used as internal or external donors in heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta (ZN) catalysis represents a fundamental interaction contributing to the final composition of MgCl2 supported ZN-catalysts. This study presents the accurate experimental evaluation, from titration calorimetry, of the formation enthalpy of TiCl4 adducts with 15 Lewis bases of industrial interests. In addition, we report accurate energies of association of TiCl4 with the same Lewis bases from calculations at the DLPNO-CCSD(T) level of theory. These accurate experimental and theoretical association values are compared with selected methods based on density functional theory (DFT) in combination with popular continuum solvation models. Calculations suggest that the PBE-D3, and M06 functionals in combination with a triple-ζ plus polarization quality basis set provide the best performance when the basis set superposition error (BSSE) is not removed from the association energies. Cleaning the association energies by the BSSE with the counterpoise protocol suggests the B3LYP-D3, TPSS-D3 and M06L as the best performing functionals. Introducing solvent effects with the PCM and SMD continuum solvation models allows comparing the DFT based association enthalpies with the experimental values obtained from titration calorimetry. Both solvation models in combination with the PBE-D3, PBE0-D3, B3LYP-D3, TPSS-D3, M06L, and M06 functionals provide association enthalpies close to the experimental values with MUEs in range 10 – 15 kJ/mol.