Estrutura eletronica de precursores de alomelaninas / Electronic structure of allomelanins precursors

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

In this work we studied, on the basis of a semiempirical and ab initio approaches, the structure and electronic properties of some allomelanins precursors. Allomelanins are part of an ubiquitous class of dark pigments known as melanins and their precursors are formed by monomers of catechol and o-benzoquinone units. Due to the lack of extensive experimental data we first compared different quantities such as dipole moment and enthalpy of formation obtained from several methodologies including Hartree-Fock and DFT, in order to choose a semiempirical model that better describes the electronic behavior of o-benzoquinone and catechol. The semiempirical models used were AM1 and PM3, where the former seems to better reproduce the structures found by ab initio methods as well as the limited available experimental data. We have investigated monomers and some dimers formed through carbon-carbon and carbon-oxygen-carbon linkages from different monomers. In general those structures resulted to be good electron acceptors, accepting one, and in some cases, two electrons. No regioselectivity was found for the dimers. Perhaps the nonexistence of preferential dimerization sites can explain why allomelanins are amorphous. Absorption spectra for neutral and ionic forms of the precursors were also simulated

ASSUNTO(S)

estrutura eletronica melanin catechol dimerization melanina allomelanin dimerização benzoquinona alomelanina electronic structure benzoquinone

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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