Probing Antioxidant-Related Properties for Phenolic Compounds

Area of Science:

• Computational chemistry
• Physical chemistry
• Biochemistry

Background:

• Phenolic compounds are vital antioxidants.
• Understanding their antioxidant mechanisms requires accurate thermochemical data.
• Computational methods offer a pathway to predict these properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine antioxidant-related properties for phenol, pyrocatechol, and gallic acid (GA).
• To investigate both protonated and deprotonated forms of GA.
• To establish a general computational protocol for accurate antioxidant property determination.

Main Methods:

• Employed the Feller-Peterson-Dixon (FPD) composite method.
• Utilized various computational approaches: DFT, MP2, and coupled-cluster methods.
• Used large correlation-consistent basis sets with CBS extrapolation and core electron correlation effects.

Main Results:

• Achieved good agreement between FPD results and literature experimental/computational data.
• Calculated BDE for phenol (87.56 kcal/mol) closely matches experimental values (87.98 ± 0.62 kcal/mol).
• Demonstrated the accuracy of the FPD method for antioxidant property prediction.

Conclusions:

• The FPD method provides accurate antioxidant-related properties for phenolic compounds.
• The study offers a validated protocol for computational chemists.
• Encourages future experimental measurements of ionization energies, especially for GA.