Modelling the correlation between molecular electrostatic potential and pKa on sets of carboxylic acids, phenols and anilines

Abstract

Calculations of molecular electrostatic potential were correlated with experimental pKa values for different sets of acidic molecules (carboxylic acids, phenols, and anilines) to obtain linear relationships of variable quality. A single tri-parameter model function was constructed to describe the pKa dependence on MEP maxima together with two automatically generated molecular descriptors, namely the counts of carboxylic acid and amine functional groups.

Keywords

• molecular electrostatic potential
• pKa
• quantum mechanical calculations
• multivariable linear regression