A comparison of the chemical reactivity of naringenin calculated with the M06 family of density functionals

Background: Chemicals generically referred to as flavonoids belong to the group of phenolic compounds and constitute an important group of secondary metabolites due to their applications as well as their biochemical properties. Flavonoids, which share a common benzo-gamma-pyrone structure, constitute a kind of compound which are highly ubiquitous in the plant kingdom. Findings: The M06 family of density functionals has been assessed for the calculation of the molecular structure and properties of the Naringenin flavonoid. The chemical reactivity descriptors have been calculated through Conceptual DFT. The active sites for nucleophilic and electrophilic attacks have been chosen by relating them to the Fukui function indices and the dual descriptor f((2))(r). A comparison between the descriptors calculated through vertical energy values and those arising from the Koopmans' theorem approximation have been performed in order to check for the validity of the last procedure. Conclusions: The M06 family of density functionals (M06, M06L, M06-2X and M06-HF) used in the present work leads to the same qualitatively and quantitatively similar description of the chemistry and reactivity of the Naringenin molecule, yielding reasonable results. However, for the case of the M06-2X and M06-HF density functionals, which include a large portion of HF exchange, the calculations considering the validity of the Koopmans' theorem lead to negative electron affinities.