How Do Methyl Groups Enhance the Triplet Chemiexcitation Yield of Dioxetane?

Chemiluminescence is the emission of light as a result of a nonadiabatic chemical reaction. The present work is concerned with understanding the yield of chemiluminescence, in particular how it dramatically increases upon methylation of 1,2-dioxetane. Both ground-state and nonadiabatic dynamics (including singlet excited states) of the decomposition reaction of various methyl-substituted dioxetanes have been simulated. Methyl-substitution leads to a significant increase in the dissociation time scale. The rotation around the O-C-C-O dihedral angle is slowed; thus, the molecular system stays longer in the "entropic trap" region. A simple kinetic model is proposed to explain how this leads to a higher chemiluminescence yield. These results have important implications for the design of efficient chemiluminescent systems in medical, environmental, and industrial applications

Theoretical Studies of Ground and Excited State Reactivity

To exemplify how theoretical chemistry can be applied to understand ground and excited state reactivity, four different chemical reactions have been modeled. The ground state chemical reactions are the simplest models in chemistry. To begin, a route to break down halomethanes through reactions with ground state cyano radical has been selected. Efficient explorations of the potential energy surfaces for these reactions have been carried out using the artificial force induced reaction algorithm. The large number of feasible pathways for reactions of this type, up to eleven, shows that these seemingly simple reactions can be quite complex. This exploration is followed by accurate quantum dynamics with reduced dimensionality for the reaction between Cl− and PH2Cl. The dynamics indicate that increasing the dimensionality of the model to at least two dimensions is a crucial step for an accurate calculation of the rate constant. After considering multiple pathways on a single potential energy surface, various feasible pathways on multiple surfaces have been investigated. As a prototype of these reactions, the thermal decomposition of a four-membered ring peroxide compound, called 1,2-dioxetane, which is the simplest model of chemi- and bioluminescence, has been studied. A detailed description of this model at the molecular level can give rise to a unified understanding of more complex chemiluminescence mechanisms. The results provide further details on the mechanisms and allow to rationalize the high ratio of triplet to singlet dissociation products. Finally, a thermal decomposition of another dioxetane-like compound, called Dewar dioxetane, has been investigated. This study allows to understand the effect of conjugated double bonds adjacent to the dioxetane moiety in the chemiluminescence mechanism of dioxetane. Our studies illustrate that no matter how complex a system is, theoretical chemistry can give a level of insight into chemical processes that cannot be obtained from other methods

Theoretical Studies of Ground and Excited State Reactivity

To exemplify how theoretical chemistry can be applied to understand ground and excited state reactivity, four different chemical reactions have been modeled. The ground state chemical reactions are the simplest models in chemistry. To begin, a route to break down halomethanes through reactions with ground state cyano radical has been selected. Efficient explorations of the potential energy surfaces for these reactions have been carried out using the artificial force induced reaction algorithm. The large number of feasible pathways for reactions of this type, up to eleven, shows that these seemingly simple reactions can be quite complex. This exploration is followed by accurate quantum dynamics with reduced dimensionality for the reaction between Cl− and PH2Cl. The dynamics indicate that increasing the dimensionality of the model to at least two dimensions is a crucial step for an accurate calculation of the rate constant. After considering multiple pathways on a single potential energy surface, various feasible pathways on multiple surfaces have been investigated. As a prototype of these reactions, the thermal decomposition of a four-membered ring peroxide compound, called 1,2-dioxetane, which is the simplest model of chemi- and bioluminescence, has been studied. A detailed description of this model at the molecular level can give rise to a unified understanding of more complex chemiluminescence mechanisms. The results provide further details on the mechanisms and allow to rationalize the high ratio of triplet to singlet dissociation products. Finally, a thermal decomposition of another dioxetane-like compound, called Dewar dioxetane, has been investigated. This study allows to understand the effect of conjugated double bonds adjacent to the dioxetane moiety in the chemiluminescence mechanism of dioxetane. Our studies illustrate that no matter how complex a system is, theoretical chemistry can give a level of insight into chemical processes that cannot be obtained from other methods

Theoretical Studies of Ground and Excited State Reactivity

To exemplify how theoretical chemistry can be applied to understand ground and excited state reactivity, four different chemical reactions have been modeled. The ground state chemical reactions are the simplest models in chemistry. To begin, a route to break down halomethanes through reactions with ground state cyano radical has been selected. Efficient explorations of the potential energy surfaces for these reactions have been carried out using the artificial force induced reaction algorithm. The large number of feasible pathways for reactions of this type, up to eleven, shows that these seemingly simple reactions can be quite complex. This exploration is followed by accurate quantum dynamics with reduced dimensionality for the reaction between Cl− and PH2Cl. The dynamics indicate that increasing the dimensionality of the model to at least two dimensions is a crucial step for an accurate calculation of the rate constant. After considering multiple pathways on a single potential energy surface, various feasible pathways on multiple surfaces have been investigated. As a prototype of these reactions, the thermal decomposition of a four-membered ring peroxide compound, called 1,2-dioxetane, which is the simplest model of chemi- and bioluminescence, has been studied. A detailed description of this model at the molecular level can give rise to a unified understanding of more complex chemiluminescence mechanisms. The results provide further details on the mechanisms and allow to rationalize the high ratio of triplet to singlet dissociation products. Finally, a thermal decomposition of another dioxetane-like compound, called Dewar dioxetane, has been investigated. This study allows to understand the effect of conjugated double bonds adjacent to the dioxetane moiety in the chemiluminescence mechanism of dioxetane. Our studies illustrate that no matter how complex a system is, theoretical chemistry can give a level of insight into chemical processes that cannot be obtained from other methods

Ab initio quantum mechanical calculation of the reaction probability for the Cl- + PH2Cl -> ClPH2 + Cl- reaction

The SN2 substitution reactions at phosphorus play a key role in organic and biological processes. Quantum molecular dynamics simulations have been performed to study the prototype reaction Cl-+PH2Cl→ClPH2+Cl-, using one and two-dimensional models. A potential energy surface, showing an energy well for a transition complex, was generated using ab initio electronic structure calculations. The one-dimensional model is essentially reflection free, whereas the more realistic two-dimensional model displays involved resonance structures in the reaction probability. The reaction rate is almost two orders of magnitude smaller for the two-dimensional compared to the one-dimensional model. Energetic errors in the potential energy surface is estimated to affect the rate by only a factor of two. This shows that for these types of reactions it is more important to increase the dimensionality of the modeling than to increase the accuracy of the electronic structure calculation

Theoretical study of the dark photochemistry of 1,3-butadiene via the chemiexcitation of Dewar dioxetane

Excited-state chemistry is usually ascribed to photo-induced processes, such as fluorescence, phosphorescence, and photochemistry, or to bio-and chemiluminescence, in which light emission originates from a chemical reaction. A third class of excited-state chemistry is, however, possible. It corresponds to the photochemical phenomena produced by chemienergizing certain chemical groups without light - chemiexcitation. By studying Dewar dioxetane, which can be viewed as the combination of 1,2-dioxetane and 1,3-butadiene, we show here how the photo-isomerization channel of 1,3-butadiene can be reached at a later stage after the thermal decomposition of the dioxetane moiety. Multi-reference multiconfigurational quantum chemistry methods and accurate reaction-path computational strategies were used to determine the reaction coordinate of three successive processes: decomposition of the dioxetane moiety, non-adiabatic energy transfer from the ground to the excited state, and finally non-radiative decay of the 1,3-butadiene group. With the present study, we open a new area of research within computational photochemistry to study chemically-induced excited-state chemistry that is difficult to tackle experimentally due to the short-lived character of the species involved in the process. The findings shall be of relevance to unveil "dark'' photochemistry mechanisms, which might operate in biological systems under conditions of lack of light. These mechanisms might allow reactions that are typical of photo-induced phenomena

Mechanisms for the Breakdown of Halomethanes through Reactions with Ground-State Cyano Radicals

One route to break down halomethanes is through reactions with radical species. The capability of the artificial force-induced reaction algorithm to efficiently explore a large number of radical reaction pathways has been illustrated for reactions between haloalkanes (CX3Y; X=H, F; Y=Cl, Br) and ground-state (2Σ+) cyano radicals (CN). For CH3Cl+CN, 71 stationary points in eight different pathways have been located and, in agreement with experiment, the highest rate constant (108 s−1 M−1 at 298 K) is obtained for hydrogen abstraction. For CH3Br, the rate constants for hydrogen and halogen abstraction are similar (109 s−1 M−1), whereas replacing hydrogen with fluorine eliminates the hydrogen-abstraction route and decreases the rate constants for halogen abstraction by 2–3 orders of magnitude. The detailed mapping of stationary points allows accurate calculations of product distributions, and the encouraging rate constants should motivate future studies with other radicals

A combined computational and experimental study of the [Co(bpy)3]2+/3+ complexes as one-electron outer-sphere redox couples in dye-sensitized solar cell electrolyte media

A combined experimental and computational investigation conducted to understand the nature of the interactions between cobalt II/III redox mediators ([Co(bpy)3]2+/3+) and their impact on the performance of the corresponding dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) is reported. The fully optimized equilibrium structures of cobalt(II/III)-tris-bipyridine complexes in the gas phase and acetonitrile solvent are obtained by the density functional B3LYP method using LanL2DZ and 6-31G(d,p) basis sets. The harmonic vibrational frequencies, infrared intensities and Raman scattering activities of the complexes are also calculated. The scaled computational vibrational wavenumbers show very good agreement with the experimental values. Calculations of the electronic properties of the complexes are also performed at the TD-B3LYP/6-31G(p,d)[LanL2DZ] level of theory. Detailed interpretations of the infrared and Raman spectra of the complexes in different phases are reported. Detailed atomic orbital coefficients of the frontier molecular orbitals and their major contributions to electronic excitations of the complexes are also reported. These results are in good agreement with the experimental electrochemical values. Marcus diagram is derived for the electron transfer reaction Co(II) + D35+ → Co(III) + D35 using the Co–N bond length as a reaction coordinate