Theoretical study on geometry and physical and chemical properties of oligochitosan

Abstract

By using the density functional theory with B3LYP/6-31G+(d) we compute the optimization, vibration frequencies, electron structures of gg conformation of oligochitosans, and study the average binding energies and the zero-point energy corrections using WB97XD method. We also analyze the thermodynamic properties of oligochitosans. Results show that the hydrogen-bond makes the oligochitosan become spiral; average binding energies tend to decrease and stability tends to improve with the increasing degree of polymerization (DP); the water degradation of oligochitosan is an exothermic reaction, so it is feasible to reduce the temperature to improve the degradation yield in experiment; in addition, the energy gap of oligochitosan quickly converges to 6.99 eV with the increase of DP; furthermore, the value of DP7 oligochitosan is in accordance with the convergence value. The HOMO and LUMO of oligochitosan show that chemical activity is mainly distributed in C2 amino, C6 hydroxyl groups, and both ends of oligochitosan chain. These results have instructive significance on the modeling, and can provide a theoritical basis for degradation process, chemical activity position, and size-dependence in physical chemical properties of oligochitosan.