Expanding horizons in conceptual density functional theory: Novel ensembles and descriptors to decipher reactivity patterns

Conceptual density functional theory (CDFT) and the quantum reactivity descriptors stemming from it have proven to be valuable tools for understanding the chemical behavior of molecules. This article is presented as being intrinsically of dual character. In a first part, it briefly reviews, in a deliberately didactical way, the main ensembles in CDFT, while the second half presents two additional ensembles, where the chemical hardness acts as a natural variable, and their respective reactivity descriptors. The evaluation of these reactivity descriptors on common organic chemical reagents are presented and discussed. In this paper, ensembles of conceptual density functional theory are reviewed, and two additional are presented. Within these added ensembles, additional quantum reactivity descriptors arise and are discussed. The numerical evaluation of these descriptors on two different series of molecules is presented. image