Structure-Activity Relationships and Rational Design Strategies for Radical- Scavenging Antioxidants

In the past two decades, there has been growing interest in finding novel and non-toxic antioxidants to meet the requirements in chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries. To accelerate the antioxidant discovery process, various theoretical methods have been employed to investigate the structure-activity relationships of antioxidants. Accordingly, some rational-design strategies for antioxidants have been proposed and applied in practice. This review summarizes the current knowledge on this topic, which will be helpful to direct the practice in related fields.