Calculation of global and local reactivity descriptors of carbodiimides, a DFT study

Abstract

Carbodiimides have been widely used for different purposes, such as an intermediary to form peptides bonds and esters, which have generated industrial, organic and biological applications. Diisoproylcarbodiimide (DIC), (3-(dimethylamino) propyl)ethylcarbodiimide (EDC) and N,N′-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCC) are the most common carbodiimides, however, there exist other carbodiimides that are not normally used. Twelve carbodiimides including the above mentioned were chosen to study their chemical reactivity as well as their nucleophilic and electrophilic attack sites. Geometry optimization in gas and solution phases was obtained using Density Functional Theory (DFT) through B3LYP with 6-31G(d) and 6-311[Formula: see text]G(d,p) level. Global and local reactivity descriptors were calculated and analyzed such as chemical hardness, ionization potential, electron affinity, Fukui functions, dual descriptor and hypersoftness. The results obtained for geometrical parameters do not have significant differences for gas and solution phase. The introduction of diffuse functions has great impact in electron affinity, modifying notably the values of reactivity descriptors, but didn’t show qualitative differences, since the results found for both basis set calculations show that Cyanamide or CD1 is the most stable and CD11 present greater reactivity of all studied molecules. Also, the hypersoftness results obtained with 6-31G(d) are in agreement with the general affirmation that carbodiimides are easily attacked by nucleophiles and electrophiles in the central carbon–nitrogen double bond.