Morokuma Keiji
Fukui Institute for Fundamental Chemistry, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Proc Jpn Acad Ser B Phys Biol Sci. 2009;85(5):167-82. doi: 10.2183/pjab.85.167.
Last few decades theoretical/computational studies of structure, function and reactivity of molecules have been contributing significantly in chemistry by explanation of experimental results, better understanding of underlying principles and prediction of the unknown experimental outcome. Accuracy needed in chemistry has long been established, but due to high power dependency of such accurate methods on the molecular size, it has been a major challenge to apply theoretical methods to large molecular systems. In the present article we will review some examples of such applications. One is theoretical study of growth/formation of carbon nanostructures such as fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, using quantum mechanical molecular dynamics method. For growth of single walled carbon nanotube from transition metal cluster, we have demonstrated continued growth of attached nanotube, cap formation and growth from small carbon fragments. For homogeneous catalysis we presented results of studies on N(2) activation by Zr complexes. For biomolecular reactions we use active site and protein models and show that in some catalyses the protein environment is involved in reactions and changes the preferred pathway, and in some other case the effect is modest. The review is concluded with a perspective.
在过去几十年中,分子结构、功能和反应性的理论/计算研究通过解释实验结果、更好地理解基本原理以及预测未知实验结果,对化学领域做出了重大贡献。化学所需的精度早已确立,但由于此类精确方法对分子大小的高度依赖性,将理论方法应用于大分子系统一直是一项重大挑战。在本文中,我们将回顾一些此类应用的例子。一个是使用量子力学分子动力学方法对富勒烯和碳纳米管等碳纳米结构的生长/形成进行理论研究。对于从过渡金属簇生长单壁碳纳米管,我们已经证明了附着的纳米管的持续生长、帽的形成以及从小碳片段的生长。对于均相催化,我们展示了关于Zr配合物活化N₂的研究结果。对于生物分子反应,我们使用活性位点和蛋白质模型,并表明在某些催化反应中,蛋白质环境参与反应并改变了优选途径,而在其他一些情况下,这种影响较小。本文最后给出了一个展望。