Abstract

The solvent effect on the position of the carbonyl vibrational stretching of acetylferrocene in aprotic media was studied in this work. The solvent-induced shifts in this organometallic compound were interpreted in terms of the alternative reaction field model (SCRF-MO) proposed by Kolling. In contrast to the established trends for carbonyl groups in organic systems, the results suggest that the continuum models for the reaction field are not adequate and that the influence of dipolarity-polarizability described by an inhomogeneous coupling function theta(epsilon)L(n(2)) that assumes optical dielectric saturation is responsible for the carbonyl band shift and, there is empirical evidence that the effect of field-induced intermolecular interaction on band shift, interpreted in terms of the van der Waals forces from the solvent, have a important contribution to this phenomena.