The Reaction Path in Chemistry: Current Approaches and Perspectives: 16 (Understanding Chemical Reactivity, 16) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0792335899 ISBN 13: 9780792335894

Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995

Synopsis

The so-called reaction path (RP) with respect to the potential energy or the Gibbs energy ("free enthalpy") is one of the most fundamental concepts in chemistry. It significantly helps to display and visualize the results of the complex microscopic processes forming a chemical reaction. This concept is an implicit component of conventional transition state theory (TST). The model of the reaction path and the TST form a qualitative framework which provides chemists with a better understanding of chemical reactions and stirs their imagination. However, an exact calculation of the RP and its neighbourhood becomes important when the RP is used as a tool for a detailed exploring of reaction mechanisms and particularly when it is used as a basis for reaction rate theories above and beyond TST. The RP is a theoretical instrument that now forms the "theoretical heart" of "direct dynamics". It is particularly useful for the interpretation of reactions in common chemical systems. A suitable definition of the RP of potential energy surfaces is necessary to ensure that the reaction theories based on it will possess sufficiently high quality. Thus, we have to consider three important fields of research: - Analysis of potential energy surfaces and the definition and best calculation of the RPs or - at least - of a number of selected and chemically interesting points on it. - The further development of concrete vers ions of reaction theory beyond TST which are applicable for common chemical systems using the RP concept.

About this title

Review

` ... will be of use to any chemist with a desire to know about how chemical reactions are described in detail. It is especially useful for the computationally minded researcher who wants to go beyond the standard description of chemical reactions in terms of structures of reactant(s), transition state, and product(s).'
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 119:6 (1997)

Synopsis

The reaction pathway (RP) technique is a powerful tool in theoretical chemistry and chemical reaction theory. The present book discusses the background of the concept, both mathematical and physical, and outlines new developments. Different approaches to the RP are described, with particular emphasis on gradient extremals and the treatment of zero eigenvalues of rotation in the Cartesian Hessian matrix along the RP. There is an excellent review of geometric optimization methods, together with an outline of density functional theory. Some contributions reveal the progress made in interface dynamics calculations based on RP potentials and tunnelling with electronic structure theory ('direct dynamics').It includes the very latest results in excited-state RP calculations (H transfer) and a theoretical view of the RPs of photodissociation processes using time-resolved femtosecond spectroscopy. The passage from the RP to the reaction mechanism is described by means of fundamental groups and symmetry rules. This book is intended for researchers in theoretical chemistry, molecular modeling, physical chemistry, kinetics, and the biosciences.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792335899
• ISBN 13: 9780792335894
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 310
• Editor: Heidrich D.