First-principles study on the heterogeneous formation of environmentally persistent free radicals(EPFRs)overα-Fe2O3(0001)surface:Effect of oxygen vacancy

Metal oxides with oxygen vacancies have a significant impact on catalytic activity for the transformation of organic pollutants in waste-to-energy(WtE)incineration processes.This study aims to investigate the influence of hematite surface oxygen point defects on the formation of environmentally persistent free radicals(EPFRs)from phenolic compounds based on the first-principles calculations.Two oxygen-deficient conditions were considered:oxygen vacancies at the top surface and on the subsurface.Our simulations indicate that the adsorption strength of phenol on theα-Fe_(2)O_(3)(0001)surface is enhanced by the presence of oxygen vacancies.However,the presence of oxygen vacancies has a negative impact on the dissociation of the phenol molecule,particularly for the surface with a defective point at the top layer.Thermo-kinetic parameters were established over a temperature range of300-1000 K,and lower reaction rate constants were observed for the scission of phenolic O-H bonds over the oxygen-deficient surfaces compared to the pristine surface.The negative effects caused by the oxygen-deficient conditions could be attributed to the local reduction of FeⅢto FeⅡ,which lower the oxidizing ability of surface reaction sites.The findings of this study provide us a promising approach to regulate the formation of EPFRs.

Chlorination pattern effect on thermodynamic parameters and environmental degradability for C_(10)-SCCPs: Quantum chemical calculation based on virtual combinational library

Short-chain chlorinated paraffins（SCCPs） are still controversial candidates for inclusion in the Stockholm Convention.The inherent mixture nature of SCCPs makes it rather difficult to explore their environmental behaviors.A virtual molecule library of 42,720 C10-SCCP congeners covering the full structure spectrum was constructed.We explored the structural effects on the thermodynamic parameters and environmental degradability of C10-SCCPs through semi-empirical quantum chemical calculations.The thermodynamic properties were acquired using the AM1 method,and frontier molecular orbital analysis was carried out to obtain the EHOMO,ELUMO and ELUMO-EHOMO for degradability exploration at the same level.The influence of the chlorination degree（NCl on the relative stability and environmental degradation was elucidated.A novel structural descriptor,μ,was proposed to measure the dispersion of the chlorine atoms within a molecule.There were significant correlations between thermodynamic values and NCl,while the reported NCl-dependent pollution profile of C10-SCCPs in environmental samples was basically consistent with the predicted order of formation stability of C10-SCCP congeners.In addition,isomers with largeμ showed higher relative stability than those with small μ.This could be further verified by the relationship between μ and the reactivity of nucleophilic substitution and · OH attack respectively.The C10-SCCP congeners with less Cl substitution and lower dispersion degree are susceptible to environmental degradation via nucleophilic substitution and hydroxyl radical attack,while direct photolysis of C10-SCCP congeners cannot readily occur due to the large ELUMO-EHOMO values.The chlorination effect and the conclusions were further checked with appropriate density functional theory（DFT） calculations.

Theoretical study on the formation mechanism of polychlorinated dibenzothiophenes/thianthrenes from 2-chlorothiophenol molecules

Homogeneous formation of polychlorinated dibenzothiophenes/thianthrenes（PCDT/TAs）,sulfurated compounds analogous to polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin/dibenzofurans（PCDD/Fs）, has been well-documented to occur via radical–radical coupling reactions from chlorinated thiophenol precursors. However, the current understanding of the formation mechanism of PCDT/TAs is exclusively limited to the inherent point of view that chlorothiophenoxy radicals act as the only required intermediates for PCDT/TAs. This study investigates reaction pathways for the formation of PCDT/TAs involving two new types of radical species, i.e., substituted phenyl radicals and substituted thiophenoxyl diradicals. Taking 2-chlorothiophenol（2-CTP） as a model compound for chlorothiophenols,we found that apart from the mostly discussed chlorothiophenoxy radicals, substituted phenyl radicals and substituted thiophenoxyl diradicals could also be readily formed via the reaction of 2-CTP with H radicals. Furthermore, direct self-and cross-coupling of these radicals can result in the formation of PCDT/TAs, including 1-monochlorothianthrene（1-MCTA）, 1,6-dichlorothianthrene（1,6-DCTA）, 4,6-dichlorodibenzothiophene（4,6-DCDT）and 1,6-dichlorodibenzothiophene（1,6-DCDT）. The pathways proposed in this work are proven to be both thermodynamically and kinetically favorable. Particularly, comparisons were made between the formation mechanisms of sulfurated and oxygenated dioxin systems from an energetic point view, showing that replacing oxygen with sulfur atoms greatly reduces the activation barriers of the rate-controlling steps involved in the PCDT/TA formation processes compared with those involved for PCDD/Fs. The calculated results in this work may improve our understanding of the formation mechanism of PCDT/TAs from chlorothiophenol precursors and should be informative to environmental scientists.

Conformation preference and related intramolecular noncovalent interaction of selected short chain chlorinated paraffins

Short chain chlorinated paraffins(SCCPs) are not only research focus of environmental issues but also interesting model molecules for organic chemistry which exhibit diverse conformation preference and intramolecular noncovalent interactions(NCIs). A systematic study was conducted to reveal the conformation preference and the related intramolecular NCIs in two C_(10)-isomers of SCCPs, 5,5,6,6-tetrachlorodecane and 4,4,6,6-tetrachlorodecane. The overall conformation profile was determined on the basis of relative energies calculated at the MP2/6-311++G(d,p) level with the geometries optimized by B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) method. Then, quantum theory of atoms in molecules(QTAIM) has been adopted to identify the NCIs in the selected conformers of the model molecules at both B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) and M06-2X/aug-cc-pvdz level. Different chlorine substitution modes result in varied conformation preference. No obvious gauche effect can be observed for the SCCPs with chlorination on adjacent carbon atoms. The most stable conformer of 5,5,6,6-tetrachlorodecane(t Tt) has its three dihedral angles in the T configuration, and there is no intramolecular NCIs found in this molecule. On the contrary, the chlorination on interval carbon atoms favors the adoption of gauche configuration for the H–C–C–Cl axis. Not only intramolecular H···Cl contacts but also H···H interactions have been identified as driving forces to compensate the instability from steric crowding of the gauche configuration. The gggg and g′g′g′g′ conformers are the most popular ones, while the populations of tggg and tg′g′g′ conformer are second to those of the gggg and g′g′g′g′ conformers. Meanwhile, the M06-2X method with large basis sets is preferred for identification of subtle intramolecular NCIs in large molecules like SCCPs.

Inhibition of thrombin by functionalized C_(60)nanoparticles revealed via in vitro assays and in silico studies

The studies on the human toxicity of nanoparticles（NPs） are far behind the rapid development of engineered functionalized NPs. Fullerene has been widely used as drug carrier skeleton due to its reported low risk. However, different from other kinds of NPs, fullerene-based NPs（C_（60） NPs） have been found to have an anticoagulation effect, although the potential target is still unknown. In the study, both experimental and computational methods were adopted to gain mechanistic insight into the modulation of thrombin activity by nine kinds of C_（60） NPs with diverse surface chemistry properties. In vitro enzyme activity assays showed that all tested surface-modified C_（60） NPs exhibited thrombin inhibition ability. Kinetic studies coupled with competitive testing using 3 known inhibitors indicated that six of the C_（60） NPs, of greater hydrophobicity and hydrogen bond（HB） donor acidity or acceptor basicity, acted as competitive inhibitors of thrombin by directly interacting with the active site of thrombin. A simple quantitative nanostructure-activity relationship model relating the surface substituent properties to the inhibition potential was then established for the six competitive inhibitors.Molecular docking analysis revealed that the intermolecular HB interactions were important for the specific binding of C_（60） NPs to the active site canyon, while the additional stability provided by the surface groups through van der Waals interaction also play a key role in the thrombin binding affinity of the NPs. Our results suggest that thrombin is a possible target of the surface-functionalized C_（60） NPs relevant to their anticoagulation effect.