ABSTRACT
Most chemical reactions in nature as well as in the laboratory take place in liquid solutions. Chemical reactions of molecules in living systems take place exclusively in the solution phase. One of the most important tactics in organic chemistry is to choose an appropriate solvent for their reactions or to get higher yields. The reaction yield and rate are controlled by the solvent through changes in the free energy difference between reactants and products and thus in the activation free energy. In living cells, chemical reactions are controlled by the solvent with an additional complication-conformational fluctuations in biomolecules. In all those reactions, the solvent effect manifests itself not only through solutesolvent interactions and solvent reorganizations but also through intramolecular processes that are always associated with changes in electronic structure. In this regard, theoretical investigations of chemical processes in solutions are inevitably coupled with studies of quantum and statistical mechanics.
