posted on 2006-03-02, 00:00authored byJ. Padmanabhan, R. Parthasarathi, V. Subramanian, P. K. Chattaraj
We present a comprehensive analysis to probe the effect of solvation on the reactivity of the complete series
of chlorobenzenes through the conceptual density functional theory (DFT)-based global and local descriptors.
We propose a multiphilic descriptor in this study to explore the nature of attack at a particular site in a
molecule. It is defined as the difference between nucleophilic and electrophilic condensed philicity functions.
This descriptor is capable of explaining both the nucleophilicity and electrophilicity of the given atomic sites
in the molecule simultaneously. The predictive ability of this descriptor is tested on the complete series of
chlorobenzenes in gas and solvent media. A structure−toxicity analysis of these entire sets of chlorobenzenes
toward aquatic organisms demonstrates the importance of the electrophilicity index in the prediction of the
reactivity/toxicity.