The Hückel method or Hückel molecular orbital theory, proposed by Erich Hückel in 1930, is a simple method for calculating molecular orbitals as linear combinations of atomic orbitals. The theory predicts the molecular orbitals for π-electrons in π-delocalized molecules, such as ethylene, benzene, butadiene, and pyridine. It provides the theoretical basis for Hückel's rule that cyclic, planar molecules or ions with 4 n + 2 {\displaystyle 4n+2} π-electrons are aromatic. It was later extended to conjugated molecules such as pyridine, pyrrole and furan that contain atoms other than carbon and hydrogen (heteroatoms). A more dramatic extension of the method to include σ-electrons, known as the extended Hückel method (EHM), was developed by Roald Hoffmann. The extended Hückel method gives some degree of quantitative accuracy for organic molecules in general (not just planar systems) and was used to provide computational justification for the Woodward–Hoffmann rules. To distinguish the original approach from Hoffmann's extension, the Hückel method is also known as the simple Hückel method (SHM). Although undeniably a cornerstone of organic chemistry, Hückel's concepts were undeservedly unrecognized for two decades. Pauling and Wheland characterized his approach as "cumbersome" at the time, and their competing resonance theory was relatively easier to understand for chemists without fundamental physics background, even if they couldn't grasp the concept of quantum superposition and confused it with tautomerism. His lack of communication skills contributed: when Robert Robinson sent him a friendly request, he responded arrogantly that he is not interested in organic chemistry. In spite of its simplicity, the Hückel method in its original form makes qualitatively accurate and chemically useful predictions for many common molecules and is therefore a powerful and widely taught educational tool. It is described in many introductory quantum chemistry and physical organic chemistry textbooks, and organic chemists in particular still routinely apply Hückel theory to obtain a very approximate, back-of-the-envelope understanding of π-bonding.
Hückel characteristics The method has several characteristics:
It limits itself to conjugated molecules. Only π electron molecular orbitals are included because these determine much of the chemical and spectral properties of these molecules. The σ electrons are assumed to form the framework of the molecule and σ connectivity is used to determine whether two π orbitals interact. However, the orbitals formed by σ electrons are ignored and assumed not to interact with π electrons. This is referred to as σ-π separability. It is justified by the orthogonality of σ and π orbitals in planar molecules. For this reason, the Hückel method is limited to systems that are planar or nearly so. The method is based on applying the variational method to linear combination of atomic orbitals and making simplifying assumptions regarding the overlap, resonance and Coulomb integrals of these atomic orbitals. It does not attempt to solve the Schrödinger equation, and neither the functional form of the basis atomic orbitals nor details of the Hamiltonian are involved. For hydrocarbons, the method takes atomic connectivity as the only input; empirical parameters are only needed when heteroatoms are introduced. The method predicts how many energy levels exist for a given molecule, which levels are degenerate and it expresses the molecular orbital energies in terms of two parameters, called α, the energy of an electron in a 2p orbital, and β, the interaction energy between two 2p orbitals (the extent to which an electron is stabilized by allowing it to delocalize between two orbitals). The usual sign convention is to let both α and β be negative numbers. To understand and compare systems in a qualitative or even semi-quantitative sense, explicit numerical values for these parameters are typically not required. In addition the method also enables calculation of charge density for each atom in the π framework, the fractional bond order between any two atoms, and the overall molecular dipole moment.
Hückel results
Results for simple molecules and general results for cyclic and linear systems
The results for a few simple molecules are tabulated below:
The theory predicts two energy levels for ethylene with its two π electrons filling the low-energy HOMO and the high energy LUMO remaining empty. In butadiene the 4 π-electrons occupy 2 low energy molecular orbitals, out of a total of 4, and for benzene 6 energy levels are predicted, two of them degenerate. For linear and cyclic systems (with N atoms), general solutions exist:
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