International audienceIt is nowadays an evidence that both gas phase reactive collisions and heterogeneous chemistry involving interstellar grains/ices, play a fundamental role in the formation ofmolecules in space. For the last processes, in addition to understanding the catalytic role of the solid phase, there is also the problem of understanding the adsorption, diffusion anddesorption of the reactants and/or products as well as the thermal exchanges between the products and the solid phase. Theoretical chemistry is able to address both chemistries withmore or less accuracy and success but always bringing useful information for astrochemical modelling. I will through this talk , try to address in a manner accessible to an interdisciplinary audience, the approaches used by the theoretical chemists/physicists of the PCMI community to understand both this gas phase and solid state chemistry
