Computational study of the spin-state energies and UV-Vis spectra of bis(1,4,7-triazacyclononane) complexes of some first-row transition metal cations

We report here computed spin-state energies and UV-Vis spectra for several transition metal complexes with a triazacyclononane ligand. Our results show that the spin ground-state is correctly obtained with either OPBE or SSB-D, except for the high-spin ground-state of the Co(II) complex that was properly described only by SSB-D. The UV-Vis spectra from TD-DFT reproduce in general rather well the experimental spectra, but in cases of the Cr(III) and Co(II) complexes it clearly failed. Better results for the UV-Vis spectra have been obtained by using Ligand Field DFT.