Theoretical Investigation into the Solvent Effect on the Thermal Decomposition of RDX in Tetrahydrofuran, Acetone, Toluene and Benzene

In order to clarify the solvent effect on the thermal decomposition of explosive, the N–NO2 trigger-bond strengths and ring strains of RDX (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine) in its H-bonded complexes with solvent molecules (i.e., tetrahydrofuran, acetone, toluene and benzene), and the activation energies of the intermolecular hydrogen exchanges between the solvent molecules and C3H8O2N4 or CH4O2N2, as the model molecule of RDX, were investigated by the BHandHLYP, B3LYP, MP2(full) and M06-2X methods with the 6-311++G(2df,2p) basis set, accompanied by a comparison with the calculations by the integral equation formalism polarized continuum model. The solvent effects ignore the ring strain while strengthen the N–NO2 bond, leading to a decreased sensitivity, as is opposite to the experimental results. However, the activation energies are in the order of C3H8O2N4/CH4O2N2∙∙∙acetone < C3H8O2N4/CH4O2N2∙∙∙THF < C3H8O2N4/CH4O2N2∙∙∙toluene < C3H8O2N4/CH4O2N2∙∙∙benzene < C3H8O2N4/CH4O2N2, suggesting that the order of the critical explosion temperatures should be RDX∙∙∙acetone < RDX∙∙∙THF < RDX∙∙∙toluene < RDX∙∙∙benzene < RDX, as is roughly consistent with the experimental results. Therefore, the intermolecular hydrogen exchange with the HONO elimination is the essence of the solvent effect on the thermal decomposition of RDX. The solvent effect is confirmed by reduced density gradient, atoms in molecules and surface electrostatic potentials.

Solvent effect on the Molecular structure and Global, Local and Dual Descriptors: A Density Functional Theory Study

This study aims to explore the effects of solvent polarity on the geometry, energy of solvation, dipole moment, polarizability, charge distribution, frontier molecular orbital analysis, and global, local, and dual descriptors for β Carboline. The effects of eight solvents were treated using a conductor-like polarized continuum model. Density Functional Theory calculations were performed at B3LYP level at 6-311++g (d,p) basis set. The computed results showed that the dipole moment, polarizability, the solvation free energy, and atomic charge of β Carboline increased with the increasing polarity of the solvent. Also, the solvation modified the values of the reactivity descriptors as a result of the interaction between the solvent and β Carboline. The dual descriptor provided a clearer difference between electrophilic and nucleophilic attack at specific atomic site than presented by Fukui functions of β Carboline.

Influence of Multiple & Cooperative Hydrogen Bonding on the Acidity of Polyhydroxylated Piperidines: Electron Density Topological Analysis

Hydrogen bonds are the presiding concepts for arranging the three-dimensional forms of biological molecules like proteins, carbohydrates and nucleic acids, and acts as guides for proton transfer reactions. Gas-phase acidity and pKa calculations in dimethyl sulfoxide on a line of polyhydroxylated piperidines specify that multiple hydrogen bonds lead to enhance acidities.The gas-phase acidity (GPA) of polyhydroxylated piperidines was investigated by MP2/6-311++G(d,p)//B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) method. For each structure, varied primary and secondary hydroxyl groups were deprotonated. The natural bond orbital (NBO) and quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) analyses have also been used to realize the character of the hydrogen bonding interactions in these compounds. The results show by adding each hydroxyl group, ΔHacid in the gas phase (it becomes less endothermic) and pKa value in the solution phase was decreased. Therefore, intramolecular hydrogen bonds lead to enhance the acid strength. In both the gas phase and solution phase, the β-Nojrimycin-OH2 (β-1-OH2) was found to be the most acidic compound with calculated gas-phase acidity (GPA) of 349.4 kcal.mol-1 and the pKa value of 22.0 (8.0 pKa units more acidic than 1-propanol).It was also shown, applying the polarized continuum model (PCM), there is a superior linear correlation with the gas phase acidities (GPAs) of polyhydroxylated piperidines and their calculated pKa (DMSO) values.

Comparative Study of Antioxidant Potential of Selected Dietary Vitamins; Computational Insights

Density functional theory (DFT) was used to explore the antioxidant properties of some naturally occurring dietary vitamins, and the reaction enthalpies related to various mechanisms of primary antioxidant action, i.e., hydrogen atom transfer, single electron transfer–proton transfer, and sequential proton loss–electron transfer were discussed in detail. B3LYP, M05-2X, and M06-2X functionals were utilized in this work. For aqueous phase studies, the integral equation formalism polarized continuum model (IEF–PCM) was employed. From the outcomes, hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) was the most probable mechanism for the antioxidant action of this class of compounds. Comparison of found results with experimental data (available in literature), vitamin C possesses the lowest enthalpy values for both proton affinity (PA) and bond dissociation energy (BDE)in the aqueous phase, suggesting it as the most promising candidate as an antioxidant. Accordingly, these computational insights encourage the design of structurally novel, simple vitamins which will be more economical and beneficial in the pharmaceutical industry.

PROTON TRANSFER IN PHOSPHORUS-CONTAINING ACID–N,N-DIMETHYLFORMAMIDE SYSTEM WITH GLANCE OF ENVIRONMENT

Proton transfer processes in the molecular and ion-molecular complexes of phosphorus acids (phosphoric H3PO4, phosphorous H3PO3, methylphosphonic СН3Н2РО3) with N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) was studied. The potential energy surface (PES) for proton transfer was studied using the B3LYP/6-31++G(d,p) level of theory, and the solvent effect (here DMF) on the PES was included using the conductor polarized continuum model (CPCM). For all cases, the energy profile for proton transfer represents a double well curve, if intermolecular O…Odistance for the hydrogen bond considered has a fixed length equal to 2.7 Å. The solvent effect favors a proton transfer in the molecular complexes, but no shift of the equilibrium towards ionic pairs is observed. As a result, the energy values associated with proton transfer are significantly reduced in comparison with those found for the gas phase. The proton transfer in the complexes of H3PO4 with DMF is more favored than this process for the cases with H3PO3 and СН3Н2РО3. The probability of proton transfer in the Н3РО4–DMF and (Н3РО4)2–DMF is nearly identical. On the contrary, the barrier height for transfer in Н3РО4–(DMF)n for n=1÷3 increases with increasing number of DMF molecules. The energy barrier for proton transfer in the DMFH+–DMF and H3PO4–H2PO4– is lower than the ones for the molecular complexes.

Prediction of Thermodynamic and Structural Properties of Sulfamerazine and Sulfamethazine in Water Using DFT and ab Initio Methods

The acid-ionization constant (pK_a) is an important physico-chemical property of molecules. In this research work, the ab initio and density functional theory (DFT) methods, in combination with the polarized continuum model (PCM), were used to calculate the acid-ionization constant of sulfamethazine (SMZ) and sulfamerazine (SMR) solved in water. For these molecules, the calculated pK_a value is in relatively good agreement with the experimental one. Also, in these calculations some structural properties such as dihedral angle between the indicated atoms: D, bond lengths between the indicated atoms: d, Bohr radius: a˳, intermolecular hydrogen bond: IHB, and total atomic charge: au have been determined. These data can be used in nano drug modeling of sulfamethazine and sulfamerazine.

Improving Solvation Energy Predictions Using The SMD Solvation Method and Semiempirical Electronic Structure Methods

The PM6 implementation in the GAMESS program is extended to elements requiring d-integrals and interfaced with the conducter-like polarized continuum model (C-PCM) of solvation, in- cluding gradients. The accuracy of aqueous solvation energies computed using AM1, PM3, PM6, and DFTB and the SMD continuum solvation model is tested using the MNSOL data set. The errors in SMD solvation energies predicted using NDDO-based methods is considerably larger than when using DFT and HF, with RMSE values of 3.4-5.9 (neutrals) and 6-15 kcal/mol (ions) compared to 2.4 and ca 5 kcal/mol for HF/6-31G(d). For the NDDO-based methods the errors are especially large for cations and considerably higher than the corresponding COSMO results, which suggests that the NDDO/SMD results can be improved by re-parameterizing the SMD parameters focusing on ions. We found the best results are obtained by changing only the radii for hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur and this leads to RMSE values for PM3 (neutrals: 2.8/ions: ca 5 kcal/mol), PM6 (4.7/ca 5 kcal/mol), and DFTB (3.9/ca 5 kcal/mol) that are more comparable to HF/6-31G(d) (2.4/ca 5 kcal/mol). Though the radii are optimized to reproduce aqueous solvation energies, they also lead more accurate predictions for other polar solvents such as DMSO, acetonitrile, and methanol, while the improvements for non-polar solvents are negligible.