A B3LYP study on counterpoise-corrected geometry optimizations for hydrated complexes of [K(H2O)n]+ and [Na(H2O)n]+

Hydrated cation-π interactions of π-electrons with hydrated Li+, Na+, and K+ cations

Cation-π interactions are essential for many chemical, biological, and material processes, and these processes usually involve an aqueous salt solution. However, there is still a lack of a full understanding of the hydrated cation-π interactions between the hydrated cations and the aromatic ring structures on the molecular level. Here, we report a molecular picture of hydrated cation-π interactions, by using the calculations of density functional theory (DFT). Specifically, the graphene sheet can distort the hydration shell of the hydrated K+ to interact with K+ directly, which is hereafter called water-cation-π interactions. In contrast, the hydration shell of the hydrated Li+ is quite stable and the graphene sheet interacts with Li+ indirectly, mediated by water molecules, which we hereafter call the cation-water-π interactions. The behavior of hydrated cations adsorbed on a graphene surface is mainly attributed to the competition between the cation-π interactions and hydration effects. These findings provide valuable details of the structures and the adsorption energy of hydrated cations adsorbed onto the graphene surface.

Dispersion- and Exchange-Corrected Density Functional Theory for Sodium Ion Hydration

A challenge in density functional theory is developing functionals that simultaneously describe intermolecular electron correlation and electron delocalization. Recent exchange-correlation functionals address those two issues by adding corrections important at long ranges: an atom-centered pairwise dispersion term to account for correlation and a modified long-range component of the electron exchange term to correct for delocalization. Here we investigate how those corrections influence the accuracy of binding free energy predictions for sodium-water clusters. We find that the dual-corrected ωB97X-D functional gives cluster binding energies closest to high-level ab initio methods (CCSD(T)). Binding energy decomposition shows that the ωB97X-D functional predicts the smallest ion-water (pairwise) interaction energy and larger multibody contributions for a four-water cluster than most other functionals - a trend consistent with CCSD(T) results. Also, ωB97X-D produces the smallest amounts of charge transfer and the least polarizable waters of the density functionals studied, which mimics the lower polarizability of CCSD. When compared with experimental binding free energies, however, the exchange-corrected CAM-B3LYP functional performs best (error <1 kcal/mol), possibly because of its parametrization to experimental formation enthalpies. For clusters containing more than four waters, "split-shell" coordination must be considered to obtain accurate free energies in comparison with experiment.

Complexation of alkali metal cations by crown-ether type podands with applications in solvent extraction: insights from quantum chemical calculations

The complexation behavior of nine polyether type podands with a varying number of oxygen donor atoms (4-10) towards the alkali metal cations Li(+), Na(+) and K(+) was studied by quantum chemical methods at the DFT-B3LYP level of theory using the all-electron split-valence 6-311++G(d,p) basis set. The optimized structures of the complexes show a regular increase in the mean cation-oxygen distance with the coordination number. OC-CO dihedral angles of the podand arms were also found to increase with the coordination number and with the size of the cation. Maximum values for the number of strong cation-oxygen interactions (effective coordination numbers) were found for each cation (six for Li(+), seven for Na(+) and eight for K(+)). The calculated values for thermodynamic parameters relative to the binding of free and solvated cations to the podands allowed the assessment of binding constants in vacuum, in water and in dichloromethane. The estimated cation extraction constants mimic the experimental extraction trends, but their values are much larger than experimental values. Scale factors were determined to correct the values effectively. For each podand the ratios between the calculated extraction constants of Li(+) (or Na(+)) and the corresponding ones for K(+) (seen as extraction selectivities) compare acceptably with the corresponding experimental values.