Granted Patent B2

US 12,367,949 · App. 17/284,548 · Granted Jul 22, 2025

Inventors: Matthias Leven (Cologne, DE); Jose Gamez (Cologne, DE); Kunibert Rehm (Leverkusen, DE)

Assignee: Covestro Deutschland AG

G16C10/00G16C20/10

Abstract

Claims (48)

1. A method for performing a catalyzed chemical reaction, said method comprising:

selecting a catalyst and/or a co-reactant for said chemical reaction, and

performing said chemical reaction,

wherein the catalyst and/or the co-reactant in said chemical reaction is selected based on calculating one or more transition states of said chemical reaction, and

wherein calculating said one or more transition states of said chemical reaction comprises:

A Generating a starting geometry by

A1 providing a three-dimensional representation of at least one molecule at ground state energy,

A2 selecting at least one bond of the at least one molecule and selecting a length of the bond, where the selected length does not correspond to the length of the bond at ground state energy of the molecule, such that a starting geometry for the chemical reaction is obtained,

A3 representing the starting geometry in three dimensions in Cartesian and/or internal coordinates, and

B Ascertaining an optimized starting geometry by

B1 defining a function space encompassing the at least one bond from step A2 and the atoms joined by this bond,

B2 optimizing the geometry of the function space selected in step B1 by means of a quantum-chemical method and with a boundary condition that the length of the at least one bond selected in step A2 is kept constant, such that the optimized starting geometry is obtained,

B3 ascertaining a gradient norm B3 for the optimized starting geometry, by (i) determining a total energy of the optimized starting geometry as a function of the nuclear coordinates of the molecule in the optimized starting geometry, where the function is the quantum-chemical method of step B2, then (ii) determining the gradient norm B3 by calculating the Euclidean norm of the total energy of the optimized starting geometry as a first derivative thereof, and

B4.1 when the gradient norm B3 ∇ is 0≤∇≤0.03 E h a 0 −1 , classifying the optimized starting geometry as a precursor to the transition state of the chemical reaction and continuing the method with step D1, or

B4.2 when the gradient norm B3 ∇ is >0.03 E h a 0 −1 , ascertaining the precursor to the transition state of the chemical reaction proceeding from the optimized starting geometry by a method comprising the following steps C:

C Ascertaining the precursor to the transition state of the chemical reaction by

C1 varying the optimized starting geometry using a Monte Carlo algorithm,

C1.1 wherein at least one atom from the function space selected in step B1 is selected at random,

C1.2 wherein a vector for a deflection of the atom chosen in step C1, and the magnitude for the vector, is selected at random, weighting the randomly selected magnitude of the vector by the gradient norm B3,

C1.3 wherein the atom selected in step C1.1 is deflected from the position of the atom in the optimized starting geometry using the vector from step C1.2, so as to obtain a precursor to the transition state of the chemical reaction,

C2 optimizing the geometry of the precursor to the transition state by means of the quantum-chemical method and with the boundary condition that the at least one bond from step A2 has the bond length that was ascertained in step C1.3,

C3 ascertaining the gradient norm C3 for the precursor to the transition state from step C2, by (i) determining a total energy of the precursor to the transition state as a function of the nuclear coordinates of the molecule in the precursor to the transition state, where the function is the quantum-chemical method of step C2, then (ii) determining the gradient norm C3 by calculating the Euclidean norm of the total energy of the optimized starting geometry as a first derivative thereof, and

C4.1 when the gradient norm C3 ∇ is 0≤∇≤0.03 E h a 0 −1 , continuing the method with step D1, or

C4.2 when the gradient norm C3 ∇>0.03 E h a 0 −1 , repeating steps C1 to C3 until a gradient norm C3 ∇ of 0≤∇≤0.03 E h a 0 −1 is obtained, wherein

(a) if steps C1 to C3 have been performed once, the geometry of the precursor to the transition state is varied in step C1 when the value of its gradient norm C3 is lower than the value of the gradient norm B3 of the optimized starting geometry, or

(b) if steps C1 to C3 have been performed more than once, the geometry of the optimized starting geometry or that precursor to the transition state from the preceding repetitions that has the lowest value for the gradient norm C3 or B3 compared to all the gradient norms C3 and B3 previously obtained is varied in step C1,

D Ascertaining the transition state by

D1 varying the precursor from step C4.1 or the precursor from step B4.1 by performing the following steps for one atom within the function space defined in B1:

D1.1 selecting an atom from the function space selected in step B1,

D1.2 selecting a vector for a deflection of the atom chosen in step D1.1,

D1.3 deflecting the atom selected in step D1.1 using the vector from step D1.2 from its position in the precursor, wherein the position is deflected once by the positive value of the magnitude of the vector and once by the negative value of the magnitude of the vector, such that two deflected precursors are obtained when steps D1.1 to D1.3 are conducted,

D2 optimizing the geometry of the two deflected precursors from step D1 by means of the quantum-chemical method under the constraint that the bond distances obtained in D1 are kept constant, such that two optimized precursors (i) and (ii) are obtained,

D3 calculating the energy of the two optimized precursors (i) and (ii) from step D2 by means of the quantum-chemical method,

D4 comparing the energy values of the two optimized precursors with the value of the gradient norm C3 or B3 of the precursor that was used in step D1,

D4.1 if the energy value of the optimized precursor (i) and the energy value of the optimized precursor (ii) are each smaller than the total energy of the precursor to the transition state determined in step C3, if the precursor from step C4.1 was used in step D1, or the total energy of the optimized starting geometry determined in step B3 if the precursor that was used in step D1, classifying the precursor from step B4.1 was used in step D1 as the transition state,

D4.2 if the energy value of the optimized precursor (i) or the energy value of the optimized precursor (ii) is not smaller than the total energy of the precursor to the transition state determined in step C3, if the precursor from step C4.1 was used in step D1, or the total energy of the optimized starting geometry determined in step B3 if the precursor from step B4.1 was used in step D1, repeating the method from step C1, and

E. selecting said catalyst and/or co-reactant in said chemical reaction based on the calculated transition state,

wherein E h is the Hartree energy, and

wherein a 0 −1 is the Bohr radius.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quantum-chemical method from steps B2, B3, C2, C3, D2 and D3 is a semiempirical method, density functional theory method or an approximation of the Schrödinger equation.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the chemical reaction is a synthesis selected from the group consisting of polymer syntheses, syntheses of monomers for polymerization reactions, industrially required commodity chemicals, platform chemicals, additives, surfactants and active pharmacological ingredients.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein in step A1, at least two molecules I and II are provided and wherein in step A2, alternatively or additionally to the at least one bond, at least one distance between at least one atom from molecule I and at least one atom from molecule II and the length of the at least one distance is also selected, where the length of the distance is especially not more than 230 pm.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein molecule I is the catalyst for the chemical reaction, and molecule II is the co-reactant in the chemical reaction, and wherein molecule I has a size of 2 to 1000 atoms and molecule II has a size of 2 to 1000 atoms, where the sum total of the atoms from molecule I and from molecule II is especially to be more than 100 atoms.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the molecule I is synthesized after step D.1 or after step D.2.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein after step D.1 or after step D.2, the chemical reaction is performed with molecule I as the catalyst.

8. The method of claim 5 , wherein after step D.1 or after step D.2, the chemical reaction is performed with molecule II as the co-reactant.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein information as to the transition state ascertained in step D.1 or the optimized precursors ascertained in step D.2 is communicated to a user.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein information as to the transition state ascertained in step D.1 or the optimized precursors ascertained in step D.2 is received by a user.

Assignments (2)

Priority Claims (1)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (29)