Mechanochemistry Activated by Confinement- and Shear-Induced Molecular Distortion

Mechanochemical activation occurs through the direct coupling of mechanical force with a chemical reaction coordinate, distorting reactant molecules from their equilibrium geometries. Understanding how this distortion reshapes the potential energy surface and, more importantly, connecting that understanding to experimentally measured mechanochemical reaction rates is a significant and inherently multiscale challenge. In this review, we first introduce the theoretical framework for defining the r