QuantumPioneer: Scalable Generation of Quantum Chemical Data for Solution-Phase Hydrogen Transfer Reactions
Abstract High-fidelity quantum chemical (QM) data sets that jointly resolve reaction thermochemistry, kinetics, and solvation at scale remain scarce, especially for radical chemistry. We introduce QuantumPioneer, an open-access reaction-centered QM database and workflow for small organic molecules, focused on peroxyl-mediated hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) and the corresponding homolytic bond dissociation reactions. QuantumPioneer contains 348,258 species (2–21 heavy atoms), 167,237 validated HAT transition states (TS) with corresponding reaction energies and homolytic bond dissociation energies (BDEs), and over 100 million COSMO-RS solvation free energies(ΔGsolv*) and enthalpies (ΔHsolv*) across 295 solvents. The workflow uses ωB97X-D/def2-SVP geometries, DLPNO–CCSD(T)-F12d/cc-pVTZ-F12 single-point energies, empirical thermochemical corrections, transition-state theory, and COSMO-RS BP-TZVPD-FINE solvation in a single high-throughput pipeline. Our benchmarks show reliable accuracy, with mean absolute errors (MAEs) compared to experimental and high-level QM reference data of 0.82 kcal/mol for gas-phase enthalpies of formation, 1.60 kcal/mol for C–H BDEs, 1.45 kcal/mol for HAT barriers, and 0.57 kcal/mol for ΔGsolv* values. We demonstrate two predictive applications. First, we show that combining BDE and HAT-barrier models identifies experimentally observed oxidative degradation sites in drug-like molecules with a 91% top-5 hit rate and 82% site-level recall. Second, we show that a QM-parametrized Abraham model enables rapid solvation energy estimates at near-COSMO-RS accuracy within its training domain, reproducing computed ΔGsolv* and ΔHsolv* values with MAEs of 0.16 and 0.18 kcal/mol, respectively, though performance on experimental ΔGsolv*values for unseen solutes was worse, with an MAE of 1.32 kcal/mol. This work provides a scalable template for other reaction families, unifying equilibrium species, validated TS, thermochemistry, kinetics, and solvation into one workflow.
Authors
- Sayandeep Biswas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0606-3884)
- Chuangchuang Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8898-0346)
- Xiaorui Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0144-5696)
- Angiras Menon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6810-2797)
- Anna C. Doner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2686-198X)
- William H. Green (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2603-9694)
- Charlles R. A. Abreu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6956-4045)
- Yunsie Chung (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3097-010X)
- Markus Kraft (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4293-8924)
- Shih‐Cheng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8645-0034)
- Connor W. Coley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8271-8723)
- Hao‐Wei Pang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9381-7500)
- Chansup Byun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0183-914X)
- F Vermeire
- Akshat Shirish Zalte (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9549-7547)
- Jeremy Kepner
- Yu-Chi Kao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-5745-9134)
- Jonathan W. Zheng
- Kevin Spiekermann
- Emad Al Al Ibrahim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8595-5102)
- Kariana Moreno Sader
- Lauren Milechin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0554-3624)
- Bonhyeok Koo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5591-8195)
- Nathan Morgan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1653-8716)
- Bryan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7707-779X)
- Haoyang Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0644-7554)
- Jackson W. Burns (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0657-9426)
Institutions
- National Taiwan University (TW)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (RU)
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory (US)
- National Taiwan University Hospital (TW)
- KU Leuven (BE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Published
- 2026-08-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6c10371
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Free Radicals and Antioxidants
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.92
Funders
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
- National Science and Technology Council
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency