The dynamical properties of the aromatic hydrogen bond in NH₄ (C₆ H₅) ⁴B from quasielastic neutron scattering

N H4 (C6 H5) 4 B represents a prototypical system for understanding aromatic H bonds. In N H4 (C6 H5) 4 B an ammonium cation is trapped in an aromatic cage of four phenyl rings and each phenyl ring serves as a hydrogen bond acceptor for the ammonium ion as donor. Here the dynamical properties of the aromatic hydrogen bond in N H4 (C6 H5) 4 B were studied by quasielastic incoherent neutron scattering in a broad temperature range (20≤T≤350 K). We show that in the temperature range from 67 to 350 K the ammonium ions perform rotational jumps around C3 axes. The correlation time for this motion is the lifetime of the "transient" H bonds. It varies from 1.5 ps at T=350 K to 150 ps at T=67 K. The activation energy was found to be 3.14 kJmol, which means only 1.05 kJmol per single H bond for reorientations around the C3 symmetry axis of the ammonium group. This result shows that the ammonium ions have to overcome an exceptionally low barrier to rotate and thereby break their H bonds. In addition, at temperatures above 200 K local diffusive reorientational motions of the phenyl rings, probably caused by interaction with ammonium-group reorientations, were found within the experimental observation time window. At room temperature a reorientation angle of 8.4°±2° and a correlation time of 22±8 ps were determined for the latter. The aromatic H bonds are extremely short lived due to the low potential barriers allowing for molecular motions with a reorientational character of the donors. The alternating rupture and formation of H bonds causes very strong damping of the librational motion of the acceptors, making the transient H bond appear rather flexible.