Date of Award:

5-2016

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Advisor/Chair:

Steve Scheiner

Abstract

This dissertation is mainly focused on charge assisted noncovalent interactions specially hydrogen and halogen bonds. Generally, noncovalent interactions are only weak forces of interaction but an introduction of suitable charge on binding units increases the strength of the noncovalent bonds by a several orders of magnitude. These charge assisted noncovalent interactions have wide ranges of applications from crystal engineering to drug design. Not only that, nature accomplishes a number of important tasks using these interactions. Although, a good number of theoretical and experimental studies have already been done in this field, some fundamental properties of charge assisted hydrogen and halogen bonds still lack molecular level understanding and their electronic properties are yet to be explored. Better understanding of the electronic properties of these bonds will have applications on the rational design of drugs, noble functional materials, catalysts and so on. In most of this dissertation, comparative studies have been made between charge and neutral noncovalent interactions by quantum mechanical calculations. The comparisons are primarily focused on energetics and the electronic properties. In most of the cases, comparative studies are also made between hydrogen and halogen bonds which contradict the long time notion that the H-bond is the strongest noncovalent interactions.Besides that, this dissertation also explores the long range behavior and directional properties of various neutral and charge assisted noncovalent bonds.

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