How Well Can New-Generation Density Functionals Describe the Energetics of Bond-Dissociation Reactions Producing Radicals?

The performance of various density functionals has been tested for three sets of reaction energies involving radicals. It is shown that two recently designed functionals, M05-2X and M06-2X, provide the best performance. These functionals provide useful and affordable methods for future mechanistic studies involving organic radicals.