Calculations from stellar evolutionary models of low- and intermediate-mass asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars provide predictions of elemental abundances and yields for comparison to observations. However, there are many uncertainties that reduce t
he accuracy of these predictions. One such uncertainty involves the treatment of low-temperature molecular opacities that account for the surface abundance variations of C, N, and O. A number of prior calculations of intermediate-mass AGB stellar models that incorporate both efficient third dredge-up and hot bottom burning include a molecular opacity treatment which does not consider the depletion of C and O due to hot bottom burning. Here we update the molecular opacity treatment and investigate the effect of this improvement on calculations of intermediate-mass AGB stellar models. We perform tests on two masses, 5 M$_{odot}$ and 6 M$_{odot}$, and two metallicities, $Z~=~0.001$ and $Z~=~0.02$, to quantify the variations between two opacity treatments. We find that several evolutionary properties (e.g. radius, $T_{rm eff}$ and $T_{rm bce}$) are dependent on the opacity treatment. Larger structural differences occur for the $Z~=~0.001$ models compared to the $Z~=~0.02$ models indicating that the opacity treatment has a more significant effect at lower metallicity. As a consequence of the structural changes, the predictions of isotopic yields are slightly affected with most isotopes experiencing changes up to 60 per cent for the $Z~=~0.001$ models and 20 per cent for the $Z~=~0.02$ models. Despite this moderate effect, we conclude that it is more fitting to use variable molecular opacities for models undergoing hot bottom burning.
