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  • The non-adiabatic nanoreactor: towards the automated discovery of photochemistry. Chemical science Pieri, E., Lahana, D., Chang, A. M., Aldaz, C. R., Thompson, K. C., Martínez, T. J. 2021; 12 (21): 7294-7307

    Abstract

    The ab initio nanoreactor has previously been introduced to automate reaction discovery for ground state chemistry. In this work, we present the nonadiabatic nanoreactor, an analogous framework for excited state reaction discovery. We automate the study of nonadiabatic decay mechanisms of molecules by probing the intersection seam between adiabatic electronic states with hyper-real metadynamics, sampling the branching plane for relevant conical intersections, and performing seam-constrained path searches. We illustrate the effectiveness of the nonadiabatic nanoreactor by applying it to benzene, a molecule with rich photochemistry and a wide array of photochemical products. Our study confirms the existence of several types of S0/S1 and S1/S2 conical intersections which mediate access to a variety of ground state stationary points. We elucidate the connections between conical intersection energy/topography and the resulting photoproduct distribution, which changes smoothly along seam space segments. The exploration is performed with minimal user input, and the protocol requires no previous knowledge of the photochemical behavior of a target molecule. We demonstrate that the nonadiabatic nanoreactor is a valuable tool for the automated exploration of photochemical reactions and their mechanisms.

    View details for DOI 10.1039/d1sc00775k

    View details for PubMedID 34163820

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC8171323

  • Hammett neural networks: prediction of frontier orbital energies of tungsten-benzylidyne photoredox complexes CHEMICAL SCIENCE Chang, A. M., Freeze, J. G., Batista, V. S. 2019; 10 (28): 6844–54

    Abstract

    The successful application of Hammett parameters as input features for regressive machine learning models is demonstrated and applied to predict energies of frontier orbitals of highly reducing tungsten-benzylidyne complexes of the form W([triple bond, length as m-dash]CArR)L4X. Using a reference molecular framework and the meta- and para-substituent Hammett parameters of the ligands, the models predict energies of frontier orbitals that correlate with redox potentials. The regressive models capture the multivariate character of electron-donating trends as influenced by multiple substituents even for non-aryl ligands, harnessing the breadth of Hammett parameters in a generalized model. We find a tungsten catalyst with tetramethylethylenediamine (tmeda) equatorial ligands and axial methoxyl substituents that should attract significant experimental interest since it is predicted to be highly reducing when photoactivated with visible light. The utilization of Hammett parameters in this study presents a generalizable and compact representation for exploring the effects of ligand substitutions.

    View details for DOI 10.1039/c9sc02339a

    View details for Web of Science ID 000476545100008

    View details for PubMedID 31391907

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC6657405

  • Inverse Design of a Catalyst for Aqueous CO/CO2 Conversion Informed by the Ni-II-Iminothiolate Complex INORGANIC CHEMISTRY Chang, A. M., Rudshteyn, B., Warnke, I., Batista, V. S. 2018; 57 (24): 15474–80

    Abstract

    A computational inverse design method suitable to assist the development and optimization of molecular catalysts is introduced. Catalysts are obtained by continuous optimization of "alchemical" candidates in the vicinity of a reference catalyst with well-defined reaction intermediates and rate-limiting step. A NiII-iminoalkoxylate catalyst for aqueous CO/CO2 conversion is found with improved performance relative to a NiII-iminothiolate reference complex, previously reported as a biomimetic synthetic model of CO dehydroxygenase. Similar energies of other intermediates and transition states along the reaction mechanism show improved scaling relations relative to the reference catalyst. The linear combination of atomic potential tight-binding model Hamiltonian and the limited search of synthetically viable changes in the reference structure enable efficient minimization of the energy barrier for the rate-limiting step (i.e., formation of [LNiII(COOH)]-), bypassing the exponential scaling problem of high-throughput screening techniques. The reported findings demonstrate an inverse design method that could also be implemented with multiple descriptors, including reaction barriers and thermodynamic parameters for reversible reactivity.

    View details for DOI 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b02799

    View details for Web of Science ID 000453938700046

    View details for PubMedID 30481007