Cooperative effects in water trimers. The performance of density functional approaches

New equation for calculating total interaction energy in one noncyclic ABC triad and new insights into cooperativity of noncovalent bonds

In this work, a new equation consist of A⋅⋅⋅B, B⋅⋅⋅C, A⋅⋅⋅BC, and AB⋅⋅⋅C interactions is proposed for calculating the total interaction energy of noncyclic ABC triads. New equations are also proposed for calculating the changes in values of A⋅⋅⋅B and B⋅⋅⋅C interactions on the formation of triad from the corresponding dyads. The advantages of equations proposed here in comparison with many-body interaction energy approach are discussed. All proposed equations were tested in F₃ MLi⋅⋅⋅NCH⋅⋅⋅HLH and F₃ MLi⋅⋅⋅HLH⋅⋅⋅HCN (M = C, Si; L = Be, Mg) as well as H₃ N⋅⋅⋅XY⋅⋅⋅HF (X, Y = F, Cl, Br) noncyclic A⋅⋅⋅B⋅⋅⋅C triads. The data show that the total cooperativity of triad correlates well with the sum of the changes in values of A⋅⋅⋅B and B⋅⋅⋅C interactions calculated through new equations proposed here. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The nature of NO-bonding in N-oxide group

The nature of the NO-bond in the N-oxide group was investigated by means of combined theoretical calculations (including QTAIM and NBO approaches) and statistical analyses of the contents of crystal structure databases. The N-O bond in the N-oxide group should be classified as the NO donating bond with an important contribution of ON back-donation (of the π-electron type, when available). The visualization of the Laplacian of electron density in the region of an oxygen valence sphere suggests the presence of two lone pairs for the imine-N-oxide group (characterized by effective ON back-donation). A detailed bonding analysis performed by means of natural resonance theory indicates that the N→O bond is of an order of magnitude clearly greater than 1. In addition, the stability of the N→O bond in various N-oxides was estimated. The analyses of the hydrogen- and halogen-bonded complexes of the N-oxides reveal strong Lewis basicity of the N-oxide group. The formation of H- and X-bonding leads to N→O bond elongation due to its structural, topological and spectroscopic characteristics. Moreover, in pyridine-N-oxide, the electron-withdrawing -NO2 group additionally stabilizes the N→O bond, whereas the opposite effect can be observed for the electron-donating-NH2 substituent. This is due to a substituent effect on the π-type ON back-donation. As a result, the oxygen atom in pyridine-N-oxide may change its availability during intermolecular interaction formation, as revealed in the interaction energy, which changes by about half of the estimated total interaction energy.

On the existence and characteristics of π-beryllium bonds

The existence of π-beryllium bonds explains the stability of the complexes between ethylene and acetylene and BeX2 (X = H, F, and Cl) derivatives. These linkers involve a significant charge transfer from the π(CC) bonding orbitals into the empty p orbitals of Be and to a much smaller degree into the σ(BeH)* antibonding orbitals. The significant deformation of the BeX2 moiety and the slight deformation of the unsaturated hydrocarbon result in distortion energies as high as the dissociation energy of the complex. The π-beryllium bonds are about four times stronger than conventional π-hydrogen bonds and even stronger than the strongest π-hydrogen bond reported to date in the literature. The topology of their electron density is characterized as being very flat in the bonding region between the π-system and Be, which leads to topologically unstable structures close to catastrophe points. Among the functionals considered in our study M06 is the one that leads to values in better agreement with CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVTZ calculations used as a reference. B3LYP underestimates some interactions, whereas M06-2X overestimates all of them. MP2 also yields good agreement with the CCSD(T) method.

Study on the cooperativity of hydrogen bonds between H2Y and HX (X = F, Cl, Br; Y = O, S, Se)

The structure characteristics, interaction energies, cooperative energies of the complexes between chalcogen hydrides ( H 2 Y ) and halogen hydrides (HX) have been studied theoretically at the MP2 level with aug-cc-pVTZ basis set in this paper. The conclusions show that there are strong interactions between H 2 Y and HX. The stability of the complex is decided by the electronegativity of the negatively charged atom. The cooperativity is observed in the two or three hydrogen bonds of each trimer structures in title system. The values of the cooperative energies and the cooperative contributions all illustrate that the cooperativity is of great importance in these complexes. The "atoms in molecules" (AIM) analyses show that the complexes in title system are mainly electrostatic interactions (closed-shell interactions) in character. For H ⋯ O bonds in H 2 O ⋯ HF ⋯ H 2 O , H 2 O ⋯ HBr ⋯ H 2 O and HF ⋯ H 2 O ⋯ HF , the 1 < |Vc|/Gc < 2 and -Gc < Hc < 0 indicate the interactions in these compounds are between closed-shell interaction and opened-shell interaction.

Cooperativity in beryllium bonds

Positive cooperativity is found in beryllium bonded complexes similar to that described for hydrogen bonded systems.

DFT STUDY OF THE PROTONATION AND DEPROTONATION ENTHALPIES OF BENZOXAZOLE, 1,2-BENZISOXAZOLE AND 2,1-BENZISOXAZOLE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STRUCTURES AND ENERGIES OF THEIR ADDUCTS WITH EXPLICIT WATER MOLECULES

Benzoxazole, 1,2-benzisoxazole and 2,1-benzisoxazole are biologically active molecules with potential applications in drug design. Their interaction with aqueous medium in biological systems may be simulated by considering their interaction with explicit water molecules. Such studies provide information on the structures, energies and type of interactions stabilizing the resulting geometric systems. The objective of the current study was to utilize theoretical approaches to investigate the structures, stabilization energy and binding energy of benzoxazole–water, 1,2-benzisoxazole–water and 2,1-benzisoxazole–water complexes. The calculations were performed utilizing the density functional theory (DFT)/M06-2X/6-311 ++ G(d,p) method and the DFT/ωB97XD method with both the 6-311 ++ G(d,p) and the aug-cc-pVDZ basis sets. The results suggest that the stability of the different clusters depends on interrelated factors including the rings formed by intermolecular hydrogen bonds and the proton affinity (PA) or acidity of the atoms forming the intermolecular hydrogen bonds with the water molecules. A comparison across methods indicates that the results follow similar trends with different methods.

Water 16-mers and hexamers: assessment of the three-body and electrostatically embedded many-body approximations of the correlation energy or the nonlocal energy as ways to include cooperative effects

This work presents a new fragment method, the electrostatically embedded many-body expansion of the nonlocal energy (EE-MB-NE), and shows that it, along with the previously proposed electrostatically embedded many-body expansion of the correlation energy (EE-MB-CE), produces accurate results for large systems at the level of CCSD(T) coupled cluster theory. We primarily study water 16-mers, but we also test the EE-MB-CE method on water hexamers. We analyze the distributions of two-body and three-body terms to show why the many-body expansion of the electrostatically embedded correlation energy converges faster than the many-body expansion of the entire electrostatically embedded interaction potential. The average magnitude of the dimer contributions to the pairwise additive (PA) term of the correlation energy (which neglects cooperative effects) is only one-half of that of the average dimer contribution to the PA term of the expansion of the total energy; this explains why the mean unsigned error (MUE) of the EE-PA-CE approximation is only one-half of that of the EE-PA approximation. Similarly, the average magnitude of the trimer contributions to the three-body (3B) term of the EE-3B-CE approximation is only one-fourth of that of the EE-3B approximation, and the MUE of the EE-3B-CE approximation is one-fourth that of the EE-3B approximation. Finally, we test the efficacy of two- and three-body density functional corrections. One such density functional correction method, the new EE-PA-NE method, with the OLYP or the OHLYP density functional (where the OHLYP functional is the OptX exchange functional combined with the LYP correlation functional multiplied by 0.5), has the best performance-to-price ratio of any method whose computational cost scales as the third power of the number of monomers and is competitive in accuracy in the tests presented here with even the electrostatically embedded three-body approximation.

Experimental and theoretical investigations of the dissociation energy (D0) and dynamics of the water trimer, (H2O)3

We report a joint experimental-theoretical study of the predissociation dynamics of the water trimer following excitation of the hydrogen bonded OH-stretch fundamental. The bond dissociation energy (D0) for the (H2O)3 → H2O + (H2O)2 dissociation channel is determined from fitting the speed distributions of selected rovibrational states of the water monomer fragment using velocity map imaging. The experimental value, D0 = 2650 ± 150 cm(-1), is in good agreement with the previously determined theoretical value, 2726 ± 30 cm(-1), obtained using an ab initio full-dimensional potential energy surface (PES) together with Diffusion Monte Carlo calculations [ Wang ; Bowman . J. Chem. Phys. 2011 , 135 , 131101 ]. Comparing this value to D0 of the dimer places the contribution of nonpairwise additivity to the hydrogen bonding at 450-500 cm(-1). Quasiclassical trajectory (QCT) calculations using this PES help elucidate the reaction mechanism. The trajectories show that most often one hydrogen bond breaks first, followed by breaking and re-forming of hydrogen bonds (often with different hydrogen bonds breaking) until, after many picoseconds, a water monomer is finally released. The translational energy distributions calculated by QCT for selected rotational levels of the monomer fragment agree with the experimental observations. The product translational and rotational energy distributions calculated by QCT also agree with statistical predictions. The availability of low-lying intermolecular vibrational levels in the dimer fragment is likely to facilitate energy transfer before dissociation occurs, leading to statistical-like product state distributions.

Cooperativity between hydrogen bonds and beryllium bonds in (H2O)(n)BeX2 (n = 1-3, X = H, F) complexes. A new perspective

The interaction of BeX(2) (X = H, F) with water molecules has been analyzed at the B3LYP/6-311+G(3df,2p)//B3LYP/6-311+G(d,p) level of theory. The formation of strong beryllium bonds between water molecules and the BeX(2) derivative triggers significant electron density redistribution within the whole system, resulting in significant changes in the proton donor and proton acceptor capacity of the water molecules involved. Hence, significant cooperative and anti-cooperative effects are present, explaining why there is no case in which the global minimum corresponds to a tetracoordinated beryllium atom. In fact, the most stable clusters can be viewed as the result of the attachment of BeX(2) to the water trimer and the water dimer, respectively, and not as the result of the solvation of the BeX(2) molecule. We have also shown that the decomposition of the interaction energy into atomic components is a reliable quantitative tool to describe all the closed-shell interactions present in the clusters investigated herein, namely hydrogen bonds, beryllium bonds and dihydrogen bonds. Indeed, we have shown that the changes in the atomic energy components are correlated with the changes in the strength of these interactions, and they provide a quantitative measure of cooperative effects directly in terms of energies.

Modulating the Strength of Hydrogen Bonds through Beryllium Bonds

The mutual influence between beryllium bonds and inter- or intramolecular hydrogen bonds (HBs) has been investigated at the B3LYP/6-311++G(3df,2p) level of theory, using the complexes between imidazole dimer and malonaldehyde with BeH2 and BeF2 as suitable model systems. Imidazole and its dimer form very strong beryllium bonds with both BeH2 and BeF2, accompanied by a significant geometry distortion of the Lewis acid. More importantly, we have found a clear cooperativity between these two noncovalent interactions, since the intermolecular HB between the two imidazole molecules in the dimer-BeX2 complex becomes much stronger than in the isolated dimer, whereas the beryllium bond becomes also stronger in the dimer-BeX2 complex, with respect to that found in the imidazole-BeX2 complex. The effects of beryllium bonds are also dramatic on the strength of intramolecular HBs. Depending on to which center the BeX2 is attached, the intramolecular HB becomes much stronger or much weaker. The first situation is found when the beryllium derivative is attached to the HB donor, whereas the second occurs if it is attached to the HB acceptor. The first effect can be so strong as to produce a spontaneous proton transfer, as it is actually the case of the malonaldehyde-BeF2 complex.

Ortho-Nitrobenzaldehyde 1:1 Water Complexes. The Influence of Solute Water Interactions in the Vertical Excited Spectrum

The intermolecular hydrogen bonding interaction of a water molecule with the caging group ortho-nitrobenzaldehyde (o-NBA) has been studied by means of quantum mechanical methods. The o-NBA chromophore presents two functional groups, NO2 and CHO, interconnected by an intramolecular hydrogen bond. Both groups compete for the interaction with the solvent molecule, leading to eleven possible stable isomers that are very close in energy. The effect of the binding water on the electronic properties of o-NBA has been analyzed in structural terms as well as using the atoms-in-molecules theory of Bader. Binding energies for all complexes are reported, and in general they range from 5 to 13 kJ/mol. Special attention has been paid to the effect of the water molecule on the vertical excitation energies of o-NBA. Upon water complexation the absorption spectrum of o-NBA shifts to higher energies and it is characterized by three bands of comparable intensities as those recently measured for o-NBA in gas phase.