Cooperative hydrogen bonding in trimers involving HCN and HBO.

A computational study of the cooperative effect of hydrogen bonding in linear trimers comprised of HCN and HBO molecules was undertaken at the MP2/6-311++G(2d,2p) level of theory. It was found that the third molecule leads to enhancement of the binding relative to that of the dimer species comprising these monomers. HBO is a better proton acceptor and a weaker proton donor than HCN.