Volume 45, Issue 32 pp. 2878-2884
RESEARCH ARTICLE

How accurate can Kohn-Sham density functional be for both main-group and transition metal reactions

Yizhen Wang

Yizhen Wang

Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovation Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, MOE Laboratory for Computational Physical Science, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

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Igor Ying Zhang

Corresponding Author

Igor Ying Zhang

Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovation Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, MOE Laboratory for Computational Physical Science, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, China

Shanghai Key Laboratory of Bioactive Small Molecules, Shanghai, China

Correspondence

Igor Ying Zhang and Xin Xu, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovation Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, MOE Laboratory for Computational Physical Science, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.

Email: [email protected] and [email protected]

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Xin Xu

Corresponding Author

Xin Xu

Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovation Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, MOE Laboratory for Computational Physical Science, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei, China

Correspondence

Igor Ying Zhang and Xin Xu, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovation Materials, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, MOE Laboratory for Computational Physical Science, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.

Email: [email protected] and [email protected]

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First published: 30 August 2024

Abstract

Achieving chemical accuracy in describing reactions involving both main-group elements and transition metals poses a substantial challenge for density functional approximations (DFAs), primarily due to the significantly different behaviors for electrons moving in the s,p-orbitals or in the d,f-orbitals. MOR41, a representative dataset of transition metal chemistry, has highlighted the PWPB95-D3(BJ) functional, a B2PLYP-type doubly hybrid (bDH) approximation equipped with an empirical dispersion correction, as the leading functional thus far (Dohm et al., J Chem Theory Comput 2018;14: 2596–2608). However, this functional is not among the top bDH methods for main-group chemistry (Goerigk et al., Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2017;19: 32184). Conversely, bDH methods such as DSD-BLYP-D3, proficient in main-group chemistry, often falter for transition metal chemistry. Herein, taking advantage of the home-made Rust-based Electronic-Structure Toolkits, we examine a suite of XYG3-type doubly hybrid (xDH) methods. We confirm that the trade-off in descriptive accuracy between main-group and transition metal systems persists within the realm of perturbation theory (PT2)-based xDH methods. Notably, however, our study ushers in a pivotal advance with the recently proposed renormalized xDH method, R-xDH7-SCC15. This method not only distinguishes itself among the elite methods for main-group chemistry, but also achieves an unprecedented accuracy for the MOR41 dataset, outperforming all other reported DFAs. The efficacy of R-xDH7-SCC15 stems from the successful integration of a renormalized PT2 correlation model (rPT2) and a machine-learning strong-correlation correction (SCC15), marking a significant step forward in the realm of computational chemistry.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

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