Computational chemistry lies at the intersection of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science, and can be used to explain the behavior of atoms and molecules, as well as to augment experiment. In this work, computational chemistry methods are used to predict structural and energetic properties of small molecules, i.e. molecules with less than 60 atoms. Different aspects of computational chemistry are examined in this work. The importance of examining the converged orbitals obtained in an electronic structure calculation is explained. The ability to more completely describe the orbital space through the extrapolation of energies obtained at increasing quality of basis set is investigated with the use of the Sapporo-nZP-2012 family of basis set. The correlation consistent Composite Approach (ccCA) is utilized to compute the enthalpies of formation of a set of molecules and the accuracy is compared with the target method, CCSD(T,FC1)/aug-cc-pCV∞Z-DK. Both methodologies are able to produce computed enthalpies of formation that are typically within 1 kcal mol-1 of reliable experiment. This demonstrates that ccCA can be used instead of much more computationally intensive methods (in terms of memory, processors, and time required for a calculation) with the expectation of similar accuracy yet at a reduced computational cost. The enthalpies of formation for systems containing s-block elements have been computed using the multireference variant of ccCA (MR-ccCA), which is designed specifically for systems that require an explicit treatment of nondynamical correlation. Density functional theory (DFT) has been used for the prediction of the structural properties of a set of lanthanide trihalide molecules as well as the reaction energetics for the rearrangement of diphosphine ligands around a triosmium cluster.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc822766 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Weber, Rebecca J. |
| Contributors | Wilson, Angela K., Schwartz, Martin, Cundari, Thomas R., Richmond, Michael G. |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | xvii, 188 pages : illustrations (some color), Text |
| Rights | Public, Weber, Rebecca J., Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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