A theoretical quantum chemical study of alanine formation in interstellar medium

Abstract

The interstellar medium, the vast space between the stars, is a rich reservoir of molecular material ranging from simple diatomic molecules to more complex, astrobiologically important molecules such as amino acids, nucleobases, and other organic species. Radical-radical and radical-neutral interaction schemes are very important for the formation of comparatively complex molecules in low temperature chemistry. An attempt has been made to explore the possibility of formation of complex organic molecules in interstellar medium, through detected interstellar molecules like CH3CN and HCOOH. The gas phase reactions are theoretically studied using quantum chemical techniques. We used the density functional theory (DFT) at the B3LYP/6-311G(d, p) level. The reaction energies, potential barrier and optimized structures of all the geometries, involved in the reaction path, has been discussed. We report the potential energy surfaces for the reactions considered in this work.