The multi-reference correlation consistent composite approach (MR-ccCA) was designed to reproduce the accuracy of more computationally intensive ab initio quantum mechanical methods like MR-ACPF-DK/aug-cc-pCV?Z-DK, albeit at a significantly reduced cost. In this dissertation, the development and applications of the MR-ccCA method and a variant of its single reference equivalent (the relativistic pseudopotential ccCA method) are reported. MR-ccCA is shown to predict the energetic properties of reactive intermediates, excited states species and transition states to within chemical accuracy (i.e. ±1.0 kcal mol 1) of reliable experimental values. The accuracy and versatility of MR-ccCA are also demonstrated in the prediction of the thermochemical and spectroscopic properties (such as atomization energies, enthalpies of formation and adiabatic transition energies of spin-forbidden excited states) of a series of silicon-containing compounds. The thermodynamic and kinetic feasibilities of the oxidative addition of an archetypal arylglycerol ?-aryl ether (?-O-4 linkage) substructure of lignin to Ni, Cu, Pd and Pt transition metal atoms using the efficient relativistic pseudopotential correlation consistent composite approach within an ONIOM framework (rp-ccCA-ONIOM), a multi-level multi-layer QM/QM method formulated to enhance the quantitative predictions of the chemical properties of heavy element-containing systems larger than hitherto attainable, are also reported.

Quantum chemistry methodologies can be used to address a wide variety of chemical problems. Key to the success of quantum chemistry methodologies, however, is the selection of suitable methodologies for specific problems of interest, which often requires significant assessment. To gauge a number of methodologies, the utility of density functionals (BLYP, B97D, TPSS, M06L, PBE0, B3LYP, M06, and TPSSh) in predicting reaction energetics was examined for model studies of C-O bond activation of methoxyethane and methanol. These species provide excellent representative examples of lignin degradation via C-O bond cleavage. PBE0, which performed better than other considered DFT functionals, was used to investigate late 3d (Fe, Co, and Ni), 4d (Ru, Rh, and Pd), and 5d (Re, Os, and Ir) transition metal atom mediated Cβ -O bond activation of the β–O–4 linkage of lignin. Additionally, the impact of the choice of DFT functionals, basis sets, implicit solvation models, and layered quantum chemical methods (i.e., ONIOM, Our Own N-layered Integrated molecular Orbital and molecular Mechanics) was investigated for the prediction of pKa for a set of Ni-group metal hydrides (M = Ni, Pd, and Pt) in acetonitrile. These investigations have provided insight about the utility of a number of theoretical methods in the computation of thermodynamic properties of transition metal hydrides in solution. As single reference wavefunction methods commonly perform poorly in describing molecular systems that involve bond-breaking and forming or electronic near-degeneracies and are typically best described with computationally costly multireference wavefunction-based methods, it is imperative to a priori analyze the multireference character for molecular systems so that the proper methodology choice is applied. In this work, diagnostic criteria for assessing the multireference character of 4d transition metal-containing molecules was investigated. Four diagnostics were considered in this work, including the weight of the leading configuration of the CASSCF wavefunction, C02; T1, the Frobenius norm of the coupled cluster amplitude vector related to single excitations and D1, the matrix norm of the coupled cluster amplitude vector arising from coupled cluster calculations; and the percent total atomization energy, %TAE. This work demonstrated the need to have different diagnostic criteria for 4d molecules than for main group molecules.

Reactions of singlet (1S and 1D) and triplet (3P) carbon atoms with water, and 1D and 3P carbon atoms with methanol were studied computationally. In the water and methanol systems, the carbon vapor containing a mixture of C(1S), C(1D), and C(3P) atoms, is predicted to react by primarily interacting with the oxygen, OH bond and CH bond of the substrate mainly with the 1D state. While C(1S) was proven to be unreactive C(3P) can hardly be supported to be reactive, and can safely be defined as unreactive. The major product, CO forms as a result of oxygen abstraction, which is observed as a fast, energetically quite favorable process. The scheme of this oxygen abstraction is promising to be applicable to substrates with the general formula R1-O-R2 i.e. water, alcohols, and ethers. OH insertion, both for water and methanol, yields trappable carbenes / the carbene being a key species on the distribution of the end products. Water matrix trapping the carbene opens the path to the formation of formaldehyde / and exhibits a prototype reaction for the formation of dialkoxymethanes. Gas phase product spectrum from the reactions are broader, due to the accessibility of the routes originating from the otherwise trapped intermediates / and the excess energy of the reactions being carried by them. In the condensed phase the very early and rapid reactions seem to have chance, the subsequent rearrangements are hard to occur. The conclusions thus far apply to the reactions in the gas phase as well as in condensed phases involving inert matrices / and the experimental isolation of the species is highly dependent on the ability of the medium to trap the intermediates via effective transfer of excess energy. Due to the large excess energies of intermediates involved, subsequent reactions are fast / of the order 1013 s-1 from kinetic rate calculations. In the absence of efficient transfer of non-fixed energies to the surrounding medium, all of the reaction paths will conclude with irreversible dissociation reactions. Plausible mechanisms for all the experimentally observed products are predicted. The results are in agreement with the available experimental data.

The chemistry of actinides in aqueous solution is important, and it is essential to build adequate conceptual models and develop methods applicable for actinide systems. The complex electronic structure makes benchmarking necessary. In the thesis a prototype reaction of the water exchange reaction for uranyl(VI), for both ground and luminescent states, described with a six-water model, was used to study the applicability of density functional methods on actinides and different solvation models. An excellent agreement between the wave function methods CCSD(T) and MP2 was obtained in the ground state, implying that near-minimal CASPT2 can be used with confidence for the reaction in the luminescent state of uranyl(VI), while density functionals are not suited to describe energetics for this type of reaction. There was an ambiguity concerning the position of the waters in the second hydration sphere. This issue was resolved by investigating a larger model, and prop- erly used the six-water model was found to adequately describe the water exchange reaction. The effect of solvation was investigated by comparing the results from conductor-like polarizable continuum models using two cavity models. Scattered numbers made it difficult to determine which solvation model to use. The final conclusion was that the water exchange reaction in the luminescent state of uranyl(VI) should be addressed with near-minimal CASPT2 and a solvation model without explicit cavities for hydrogens. Finally it was shown that no new chemistry appears in the luminescent state for this reaction. The thesis includes a methodological investigation of a multi-reference density functional method based on a range separation of the two-electron interaction. The method depends on a universal parameter, which has been determined for lighter elements. It is shown here that the same parameter could be used for actinides, a prerequisite for further development of the method. The results are in that sense promising.

Density functional theory is an efficient and useful method of solving single-reference computational chemistry problems, however it struggles with multi-reference systems. Modifications have been developed in order to improve the capabilities of density functional theory. In this work, density functional theory has been successfully applied to solve multi-reference systems with large amounts of non-dynamical correlation by use of modifications. It has also been successfully applied for geometry optimizations for lanthanide trifluorides.

Title: Study of Diradicals by Explicitly Correlated Multireference Coupled Cluster Methods Author: Matej Švaňa Department: Department of Physical and Macromelecular Chemistry Supervisor: Mgr. Jiří Pittner, Dr. rer. nat., J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry Abstract: Total energies of cyclopropane, trimethylene, and propylidene were calculated with conventional post-HF CCSD(T), BWCCSD(T), MkCCSD(T) methods and their explicitly correlated alternatives. Main aims of the the- sis were to compare the basis set convergence of total energies and relative energies between cyclopropane and trimethylene/propylidene, both at the conventional and the explicitly correlated levels. It was shown that use of explicit correlation accelerates the convergence of the total energy by one or- der of basis set quality, resulting in considerable savings in computational times. Also, the MkCCSD(T)-F12/QZ and the BWCCSD(T)-F12/QZ calcula- tions belong to the most sophisticated approaches employed for estimation of the relative energies of cyclopropane and trimethylene/propylidene to date. Keywords: explicitly correlated, coupled cluster, multi-reference, cyclopropane isomerisation, trimethylene, propylidene 1

From a theoretical standpoint, the accurate description of potential energy surfaces for bond breaking and the equilibrium structures of metal-ligand catalysts are distinctly similar problems. Near degeneracies of the bonding and anti-bonding orbitals for the case of bond breaking and of the partially-filled d-orbitals for the case of metal-ligand catalyst systems lead to strong non-dynamical correlation effects. Standard methods of electronic structure theory, as a consequence of the single-reference approximation, are incapable of accurately describing the electronic structure of these seemingly different theoretical problems. The work within highlights the application of multi-reference methods, methods capable of accurately treating these near-degeneracies, for describing the bond-breaking potentials in several small molecular systems and the equilibrium structures of metal-salen catalysts. The central theme of this work is the ability of small, compact reference functions for accurately describing the strong non-dynamical correlation effects in these systems.

Der Beitrag gibt einen kompakten Überblick zur Leistungsfähigkeit und Anwendbarkeit der in den Teilprojekten D2-Numerische Simulation, E3-Sicherheitsbeurteilung und E4-Numerische Langzeitprognose des Sonderforschungsbereichs 528 entwickelten Algorithmen und Programmlösungen. Die gezeigten Methoden sind praxistauglich aufbereitet und stehen zur Anwendung für die Analyse des Kurz- und Langzeit-Tragverhaltens von Textilbetonstrukturen zur Verfügung. / The paper provides a compact summary of the ability and applicability of the algorithms and software packages developed in the project parts D2-Numerical Simulation, E3-Reliability Assessment und E4-Numerical Long-term Prognosis of the Collaborative Research Centre 528. The presented methods are prepared for practical use and are available for the analysis of the short- and longterm load-bearing behaviour of textile reinforced concrete structures.

Der Beitrag gibt einen kompakten Überblick zur Leistungsfähigkeit und Anwendbarkeit der in den Teilprojekten D2-Numerische Simulation, E3-Sicherheitsbeurteilung und E4-Numerische Langzeitprognose des Sonderforschungsbereichs 528 entwickelten Algorithmen und Programmlösungen. Die gezeigten Methoden sind praxistauglich aufbereitet und stehen zur Anwendung für die Analyse des Kurz- und Langzeit-Tragverhaltens von Textilbetonstrukturen zur Verfügung. / The paper provides a compact summary of the ability and applicability of the algorithms and software packages developed in the project parts D2-Numerical Simulation, E3-Reliability Assessment und E4-Numerical Long-term Prognosis of the Collaborative Research Centre 528. The presented methods are prepared for practical use and are available for the analysis of the short- and longterm load-bearing behaviour of textile reinforced concrete structures.

Anhand von theoretischen Untersuchungen wird eine umfassende Beschreibung von kleinen Metalloxidclustern gegeben. Bei den untersuchten Systemen handelt es sich um Aluminium- und Eisenoxid-Ionen sowie entsprechende Oxid-Cluster, die beide Metalle enthalten. Neben der Bestimmung der geometrischen Struktur der Cluster werden auch die allgemeinen elektronischen Eigenschaften der eisenhaltigen Verbindungen untersucht. Alle Vorhersagen werden durch Vergleich mit verfügbaren experimentellen Ergebnissen -- hauptsächlich aus der Infrarot-Photodissoziations- und der Photoelektronenspektroskopie -- überprüft und bewertet. Soweit möglich werden die Bewegungen von Atomen oder kleinen Gruppen innerhalb der Cluster einzelnen experimentellen Signalen zugeordnet. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit wird dem Eisendioxidmolekül und seinem Anion gewidmet. Es wird mit spezialisierten Wellenfunktionsmethoden untersucht, mit denen ab initio Franck-Condon-Simulationen einschließlich nicht-adiabatischer und Spin-Orbit-Kopplungen für die Photoionisation des Anions erstellt werden. Sie liefern Erklärungen für die komplizierte Schwingungsstruktur des experimentellen hochauflösenden Photoelektronenspektrums. / By means of theoretical investigations, a comprehensive description of small metal oxide clusters is given. The studied systems are aluminum and iron oxide ions as well as respective bi-metallic oxide clusters. Besides the determination of the geometrical structure of the clusters, the general electronic properties of the iron-containing compounds are investigated. All predictions are checked and assessed by comparison with available experimental results, mainly infrared photodissociation and photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. As far as possible, motions of atoms or small groups within the clusters are assigned to distinct experimental vibrational features. Particular attention is paid to the iron dioxide molecule and its anion. It is studied with sophisticated wave function methods based on which ab initio Franck-Condon simulations for the photodetachment from the anion, including non-adiabatic and spin-orbit couplings, are generated. They provide explanations for the complicated vibrational structure of the experimental high-resolution photoelectron spectrum.