Quantum chemical methods, computational

However, even the best experimental technique typically does not provide a detailed mechanistic picture of a chemical reaction. Computational quantum chemical methods such as the ab initio molecular orbital and density functional theory (DFT) " methods allow chemists to obtain a detailed picture of reaction potential energy surfaces and to elucidate important reaction-driving forces. Moreover, these methods can provide valuable kinetic and thermodynamic information (i.e., heats of formation, enthalpies, and free energies) for reactions and species for which reactivity and conditions make experiments difficult, thereby providing a powerful means to complement experimental data. 

Ab initio quantum chemistry has advanced so far in the last 40 years that it now allows the study of molecular systems containing any atom in the Periodic Table. Transition metal and actinide compounds can be treated routinely, provided that electron correlation1 and relativistic effects2 are properly taken into account. Computational quantum chemical methods can be employed in combination with experiment, to predict a priori, to confirm, or eventually, to refine experimental results. These methods can also predict the existence of new species, which may eventually be made by experimentalists. This latter use of computational quantum chemistry is especially important when one considers experiments that are not easy to handle in a laboratory, as, for example, explosive or radioactive species. It is clear that a good understanding of the chemistry of such species can be useful in several areas of scientific and technological exploration. Quantum chemistry can model molecular properties and transformations, and in... 

As is evident from these examples, computational quantum mechanics, semiempirical and ab initio methods alike, represent important new tools for the estimation of rate parameters from first principles. Our ability to estimate activation energies is particularly significant because until the advent of these techniques, no fundamentally based methods were available for the determination of this important rate parameter. It must be recognized, however, that these theoretical approaches still are at their early stages of development that is to say, computational quantum chemical methods should only be used with considerable care and in conjunction with conventional methods of estimation discussed earlier in this article, as well with experiments. 

Formation of metal-organic compound co-condensates presents a peculiar problem, which is difficult to study. Most experimental methods are inapplicable to the study of the processes that take place at the instant of cocondensation. This brings to the fore theoretical approaches. The state of the art of computational quantum-chemical methods makes it possible to adequately describe the structure of organometallic compounds and estimate their stability and, sometimes, reactivity. 

The study of van der Waals and hydrogen bonded molecules is one of the very important fields of chemistry where computational quantum chemical methods have increased our understanding both in a quantitative and qualitative way. The interest in the subject is emphasised by the impressive number of reviews, monographs and books that have recently appeared [1]. An accurate knowledge of the interaction potential between the individual molecules is in fact essential to the treatment of both finite clusters and condensed matter properties in the broad field of computer simulations. 

At present the chemist has a wide variety of quantum chemical methods available, and it is difficult to keep the numerous modifications of only a few basic statements in perspective, even for the insiders. All methods can be divided into two basic categories the ab initio calculations and the semiempirical calculations. The ab initio as well as the semiempirical treatments of chemical problems were developed proportional to the computers because... 

The maintenance of a connection to experiment is essential in that reliability is only measurable against experimental results. However, in practice, the computational cost of the most reliable conventional quantum chemical methods has tended to preclude their application to the large, low-symmetry molecules which form liquid crystals. There have however, been several recent steps forward in this area and here we will review some of these newest developments in predictive computer simulation of intramolecular properties of liquid crystals. In the next section we begin with a brief overview of important molecular properties which are the focus of much current computational effort and highlight some specific examples of cases where the molecular electronic origin of macroscopic properties is well established. 

Comparison of Barrier Heights (BH) in kcal mol for the Proton Transfer in Malonaldehyde Computed by Different Quantum Chemical Methods... 

Hpp describes the primary system by a quantum-chemical method. The choice is dictated by the system size and the purpose of the calculation. Two approaches of using a finite computer budget are found If an expensive ab-initio or density functional method is used the number of configurations that can be afforded is limited. Hence, the computationally intensive Hamiltonians are mostly used in geometry optimization (molecular mechanics) problems (see, e. g., [66]). The second approach is to use cheaper and less accurate semi-empirical methods. This is the only choice when many conformations are to be evaluated, i. e., when molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo calculations with meaningful statistical sampling are to be performed. The drawback of semi-empirical methods is that they may be inaccurate to the extent that they produce qualitatively incorrect results, so that their applicability to a given problem has to be established first [67]. 

The computational prediction of vibrational spectra is among the important areas of application for modem quantum chemical methods because it allows the interpretation of experimental spectra and can be very instrumental for the identification of unknown species. A vibrational spectrum consists of two characteristics, the frequency of the incident light at which the absorption occurs and how much of the radiation is absorbed. The first quantity can be obtained computationally by calculating the harmonic vibrational frequencies of a molecule. As outlined in Chapter 8 density functional methods do a rather good job in that area. To complete the picture, one must also consider the second quantity, i. e., accurate computational predictions of the corresponding intensities have to be provided. 

The applications of quantum chemical calculations to biological systems has been made possible by huge advances in computer facilities and the creation of better computer programs, capable of handling large systems. This book describes some of the quantum chemical methods used for such calculations, together with some widely used computer programs. 

Chapter 1 gives a short description of ab initio methods, Hartree-Fock and post-Hartree-Fock, focusing on the Gaussian computer programs. Chapter 2 describes semi-empirical calculations and their applications to biological systems. Chapter 3 addresses itself to electrostatic properties of molecules, as determined by quantum-chemical methods. The density functional method is discussed in chapter 4. Chapter 5 compares theoretically obtained parameters to experimental data. 

Quantum chemical methods are well established, accepted and of high potential for investigation of inorganic reaction mechanisms, especially if they can be applied as a fruitful interplay between theory and experiment. In the case of solvent exchange reactions their major deficiency is the limited possibility of including solvent effects. We demonstrated that with recent DFT-and ab initio methods, reaction mechanisms can be successfully explored. To obtain an idea about solvent effects, implicit solvent models can be used in the calculations, when their limitations are kept in mind. In future, more powerful computers will be available and will allow more sophisticated calculations to be performed. This will enable scientists to treat solvent molecules explicitly by ab initio molecular dynamics (e.g., Car-Parrinello simulations). The application of such methods will in turn complement the quantum chemical toolbox for the exploration of solvent and ligand exchange reactions. 

During the last decade, density-functional theory (DFT)-based approaches [1, 2] have advanced to prominent first-principles quantum chemical methods. As computationally affordable tools apt to treat fairly extended systems at the correlated level, they are also of special interest for applications in medicinal chemistry (as demonstrated in the chapters by Rovira, Raber et al. and Cavalli et al. in this book). Several excellent text books [3-5] and reviews [6] are available as introduction to the basic theory and to the various flavors of its practical realization (in terms of different approximations for the exchange-correlation functional). The actual performance of these different approximations for diverse chemical [7] and biological systems [8] has been evaluated in a number of contributions. 

Simplicity and accuracy in computation, especially with large molecules for which other ab initio quantum chemical methods currently in vogue require computational labor of at least one order of magnitude greater for delivering results of comparable accuracy. 

Having established the most important concepts for MQS, the next step is to actually compute the numerical values associated with the quantum similarity measures. Electron densities can naturally be obtained from many quantum chemical methods such as DFT, Hartree-Fock, configuration interaction, and many more, even from experiment. 

In this chapter, we review the elements of G3 theory and related techniques of computational thermochemistry. This review is restricted almost exclusively to the techniques that we have developed and the reader is referred to the remaining chapters in this volume for other complementary approaches. An important part of the development of such quantum-chemical methods is their critical assessment on test sets of accurate experimental data. Section 3.2 provides a brief description of the comprehensive G3/99 test set [26] of experimental data that we have collected. Section 3.3 discusses the components of G3 theory as well as the approximate versions such as G3(MP3) [22] and G3(MP2) [23], and their performance for the G3/99 test set. The G3S method [29] that includes multiplicative scale factors is presented in section 3.4 along with other related variants. Section 3.5 discusses the recently developed G3X method [30] that corrects for most of the deficiencies of G3 theory for larger molecules. The performance of these methods is compared to... 

For applications of quantum chemical methods on transition metal compounds see the articles which appeared in the special issue on Computational Transition Metal Chemistry in Chem. Rev. 100 (2000). 

Another major, future advance in the quantum chemical computation of potential energy surfaces for reaction dynamics will be the ability to routinely compute the energies of molecular systems on the fly . The tedious and time-consuming process of fitting computed quantum chemical values to functional forms could be avoided if it were possible to compute the PES as needed during a classical trajectory or quantum dynamics calculation. For many chemical reactions, it should be practical in the near future to prudently select a sufficiently rapid and accurate electronic structure method to facilitate dynamics computations on the fly. 

In summary, computational quantum mechanics has reached such a state that its use in chemical kinetics is possible. However, since these methods still are at various stages of development, their routine and direct use without carefully evaluating the reasonableness of predictions must be avoided. Since ab initio methods presently are far too expensive from the computational point of view, and still require the application of empirical corrections, semiempirical quantum chemical methods represent the most accessible option in chemical reaction engineering today. One productive approach is to use semiempirical methods to build systematically the necessary thermochemical and kinetic-parameter data bases for mechanism development. Following this, the mechanism would be subjected to sensitivity and reaction path analyses for the determination of the rank-order of importance of reactions. Important reactions and species can then be studied with greatest scrutiny using rigorous ab initio calculations, as well as by experiments. 

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