Synthesis, antioxidant and dft study of some 4-methyl-2h-chromen-2-one derivatives

A series of 4-methyl-2H-chromen-2-ones (Mol 1-Mol 5) were synthesized via Von Pechmann condensation and characterized using spectroscopic techniques. Their antioxidant activity was investigated using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging assay. The latter study showed that all the examined compounds (Mol 1-Mol 5), have a moderate to significant antioxidant capacity (IP % > 50%) compared to the reference vitamin C (Mol 6). In order to correlate molecular structure-antioxidant activity, DFT based molecular descriptors, such as E-HOMO,Delta E-gap, Ionization potential (IP), Electron affinity (EA), Hardness (eta), Softness (S), and Electronegativity (mu), global electrophilicity (omega) were computed for Mol 3, Mol 5 and the reference Vitamin C (Mol 6).