The nature of the rotational barriers in simple carbonyl compounds

The rotational barriers around the CO and CC bonds are investigated in formic acid, ethanedial and glycolaldedyde molecules on the basis of DFT-B3LYP/aug-cc-pVDZ calculations. Natural bond orbitals analysis is applied to enhance physical understanding of rotational barriers. In the case of attractive barriers in formic acid and Gc-glycolaldehyde, the barrier originates from the loss of hyperconjugation that determines the equilibrium structures while for the repulsive barriers in ethanedial and Go-glycolaldehyde, both Lewis and hyperconjugation terms contribute.