Potential energy surfaces structural effects

Consider a reactant molecule in which one atom is replaced by its isotope, for example, protium (H) by deuterium (D) or tritium (T), C by C, etc. The only change that has been made is in the mass of the nucleus, so that to a very good approximation the electronic structures of the two molecules are the same. This means that reaction will take place on the same potential energy surface for both molecules. Nevertheless, isotopic substitution can result in a rate change as a consequence of quantum effects. A rate change resulting from an isotopic substitution is called a kinetic isotope effect. Such effects can provide valuable insights into reaction mechanism. 

Ah initio calculations on the geometry optimization of the 2 kg state of s-traws-butadiene have shown that the C2h planar structure is not stable since it presents several imaginary frequencies associated to out-of-plane vibrations. Three nonplanar structures are found to be stable minima on the potential energy surface. The nonplanarity of this state makes the out-of-plane vibrations effective accepting modes. This fact strongly increases the rate of 2 kg - 1 kg internal conversion, which would explain the lack of fluorescence in butadiene56. 

The reaction potentials displayed in Scheme 2.6 are those appropriate for the symmetric transfer of a proton in a vacuum, AH+ A <-> A HA+. However, when the system is placed in a polar solvent, the effect of the polar solvent upon the stability of the reactant and product state must be taken into account. The reactant and the proton state will have different solvent structures (Scheme 2.7). The effect of having different solvent structures associated with the reactant and product state is to break the symmetry of the potential energy surface associated with the proton-transfer coordinate. 

Ab initio calculations and density functional theory studies of the gas-phase addition of HF to CH2=CH2 have revealed the possibility of forming trimolecular (two HF and one ethylene) and dimolecular (one FIF and one ethylene) complexes and transition-state structures and of the catalytic effect of the second molecule of the reagent. An energetically favourable pathway was selected on the basis of the computed potential-energy surface for these two reactions. ... 

A depiction of a hypothetical potential energy surface for a reacting system as a function of two chosen coordinates (c.g., the lengths of two bonds being broken). Such diagrams are useful in assessing structural effects on transition states for stepwise or concerted pathways. An example of More O Ferrall-Jencks diagrams for j8-elimina-tion reactions is shown below. 

Quantum chemical calculations need not be limited to the description of the structures and properties of stable molecules, that is, molecules which can actually be observed and characterized experimentally. They may as easily be applied to molecules which are highly reactive ( reactive intermediates ) and, even more interesting, to molecules which are not minima on the overall potential energy surface, but rather correspond to species which connect energy minima ( transition states or transition structures ). In the latter case, there are (and there can be) no experimental structure data. Transition states do not exist in the sense that they can be observed let alone characterized. However, the energies of transition states, relative to energies of reactants, may be inferred from experimental reaction rates, and qualitative information about transition-state geometries may be inferred from such quantities as activation entropies and activation volumes as well as kinetic isotope effects. 

It is prerequisite to define localized, diabatic state wave fimctions, representing specific Lewis resonance configurations, in a VB-like method. Although this can in principle be done using an orbital localization technique, the difficulty is that these localization methods not only include orthorgonalization tails, but also include delocalization tails, which make contribution to the electronic delocalization effect and are not appropriate to describe diabatic potential energy surfaces. We have proposed to construct the locahzed diabatic state, or Lewis resonance structure, using a strictly block-localized wave function (BLW) method, which was developed recently for the study of electronic delocalization within a molecule.(28-3 1)... 

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