Benchmark study of benzamide derivatives and four novel theoretically designed (L1, L2, L3, and L4) ligands and evaluation of their biological properties by DFT approaches.

Four novel ligands, namely N-benzhydryl benzamide, N, N-diphenethyl benzamide, N, N-dihexyl benzamide, and N, N-dioctyl benzamide (L1, L2, L3, and L4, respectively), based on the benzamide unit were designed and computed for their different properties, such as absorption spectrum, dipole moment, theoretically expected biological properties, and frontier molecular orbitals, by evaluating the HOMO/LUMO energy orbitals strength with DFT approaches and comparing these properties with the R benzamide properties available in literature. All molecules have a suitable frontier molecular orbital diagram and L1 exhibits maximum absorption at 246.8 nm due to the strong electron donating effect of the diphenylmethane ligand group. Moreover, strongly extended conjugated groups caused a redshift in absorption spectra. Newly designed molecules may show strong biological activities against cancer, bacterial diseases, and harmful fungal disorders. Graphical abstract Orbital energy, electron density and frontier molecular orbitals view of four designed novel benzamide derivates.