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Full-Text Articles in Chemistry

Computational Quantum Chemistry Studies Of The Stabilities Of Radical Intermediates Formed During The Oxidation Of Melatonin, Constance E. Warden Dec 2016

Computational Quantum Chemistry Studies Of The Stabilities Of Radical Intermediates Formed During The Oxidation Of Melatonin, Constance E. Warden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Melatonin, a nontoxic natural antioxidant, is of interest as a possible spin trap for use in spectroscopic methods to observe and identify short-lived free radicals, which have been linked to oxidative stress that may result in serious health problems. However, the reaction mechanisms for the oxidation of melatonin to form the product N1-acetyl-N2-formyl-5-methoxykynuramine are still not well understood. Computational quantum chemistry studies have been done on four proposed reaction mechanisms, involving the following major intermediate structures: a dioxetane, an epoxide, a melatonin radical cation, and a spin radical adduct. Molecular geometries were optimized at the …


Benchmarking Ab Initio Computational Methods For The Quantitative Prediction Of Sunlight-Driven Pollutant Degradation In Aquatic Environments, Kasidet Trerayapiwat May 2016

Benchmarking Ab Initio Computational Methods For The Quantitative Prediction Of Sunlight-Driven Pollutant Degradation In Aquatic Environments, Kasidet Trerayapiwat

Honors Projects

Understanding the changes in molecular electronic structure following the absorption of light is a fundamental challenge for the goal of predicting photochemical rates and mechanisms. Proposed here is a systematic benchmarking method to evaluate accuracy of a model to quantitatively predict photo-degradation of small organic molecules in aquatic environments. An overview of underlying com- putational theories relevant to understanding sunlight-driven electronic processes in organic pollutants is presented. To evaluate the optimum size of solvent sphere, molecular Dynamics and Time Dependent Density Functional Theory (MD-TD-DFT) calculations of an aniline molecule in di↵erent numbers of water molecules using CAM-B3LYP functional yielded excited …