Isotope effects of hydrogen and atom tunnelling

The abnormally high mass-dependent isotope effects in liquid-phase hydrogen (deuterium) atom transfer reactions, which are customarily regarded as quantum effects, are actually the products of two classical effects, namely, kinetic and thermodynamic ones. The former is determined by the rate constants for atom transfer and the latter is caused by nonbonded (or noncovalent) isotope effects in the solvation of protiated and deuterated reacting molecules. This product can mimic the large isotope effects that are usually attributed to tunnelling. In enzymatic reactions, tunnelling is of particular interest; its existence characterizes an enzyme as a rigid molecular machine in which the residence time of reactants on the reaction coordinate exceeds the waiting time for the tunnelling event. The magnitude of isotope effect becomes a characteristic parameter of the internal dynamics of the enzyme catalytic site.
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