Current Status of AMOEBA-IL: A Multipolar/Polarizable Force Field for Ionic Liquids

Computational simulations of ionic liquid solutions have become a useful tool to investigate various physical, chemical and catalytic properties of systems involving these solvents. Classical molecular dynamics and hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) calculations of IL systems have provided significant insights at the atomic level. Here, we present a review of the development and application of the multipolar and polarizable force field AMOEBA for ionic liquid systems, termed AMOEBA–IL. The parametrization approach for AMOEBA–IL relies on the reproduction of total quantum mechanical (QM) intermolecular interaction energies and QM energy decomposition analysis. This approach has been used to develop parameters for imidazolium– and pyrrolidinium–based ILs coupled with various inorganic anions. AMOEBA–IL has been used to investigate and predict the properties of a variety of systems including neat ILs and IL mixtures, water exchange reactions on lanthanide ions in IL mixtures, IL–based liquid–liquid extraction, and effects of ILs on an aniline protection reaction.

Electron spectroscopy of ionic liquids: experimental identification of atomic orbital contributions to valence electronic structure

The atomic contributions to valence electronic structure for 37 ionic liquids (ILs) are identified using a combination of variable photon energy XPS, resonant Auger electron spectroscopy (RAES) and a subtraction method. The ILs studied include a diverse range of cationic and anionic structural moieties. We introduce a new parameter for ILs, the energy difference between the energies of the cationic and anionic highest occupied fragment orbitals (HOFOs), which we use to identify the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). The anion gave rise to the HOMO for 25 of the 37 ILs studied here. For 10 of the ILs, the energies of the cationic and anionic HOFOs were the same (within experimental error); therefore, it could not be determined whether the HOMO was from the cation or the anion. For two of the ILs, the HOMO was from the cation and not from the anion; consequently it is energetically more favourable to remove an electron from the cation than the anion for these two ILs. In addition, we used a combination of area normalisation and subtraction of XP spectra to produce what are effectively XP spectra for individual ions; this was achieved for 10 cations and 14 anions.

On the importance of initial conditions for excited-state dynamics

The vast majority of ab initio excited-state simulations are performed within semiclassical, trajectory-based approaches. Apart from the underlying electronic-structure theory, the reliability of the simulations is controlled by a selection of initial conditions for the classical trajectories. We discuss appropriate choices of initial conditions for simulations of different experimental arrangements: dynamics initiated by continuum-wave (CW) laser fields or triggered by ultrashort laser pulses.

Modeling photoionization of aqueous DNA and its components

Radiation damage to DNA is usually considered in terms of UVA and UVB radiation. These ultraviolet rays, which are part of the solar spectrum, can indeed cause chemical lesions in DNA, triggered by photoexcitation particularly in the UVB range. Damage can, however, be also caused by higher energy radiation, which can ionize directly the DNA or its immediate surroundings, leading to indirect damage. Thanks to absorption in the atmosphere, the intensity of such ionizing radiation is negligible in the solar spectrum at the surface of Earth. Nevertheless, such an ionizing scenario can become dangerously plausible for astronauts or flight personnel, as well as for persons present at nuclear power plant accidents. On the beneficial side, ionizing radiation is employed as means for destroying the DNA of cancer cells during radiation therapy. Quantitative information about ionization of DNA and its components is important not only for DNA radiation damage, but also for understanding redox properties of DNA in redox sensing or labeling, as well as charge migration along the double helix in nanoelectronics applications. Until recently, the vast majority of experimental and computational data on DNA ionization was pertinent to its components in the gas phase, which is far from its native aqueous environment. The situation has, however, changed for the better due to the advent of photoelectron spectroscopy in liquid microjets and its most recent application to photoionization of aqueous nucleosides, nucleotides, and larger DNA fragments. Here, we present a consistent and efficient computational methodology, which allows to accurately evaluate ionization energies and model photoelectron spectra of aqueous DNA and its individual components. After careful benchmarking, the method based on density functional theory and its time-dependent variant with properly chosen hybrid functionals and polarizable continuum solvent model provides ionization energies with accuracy of 0.2-0.3 eV, allowing for faithful modeling and interpretation of DNA photoionization. The key finding is that the aqueous medium is remarkably efficient in screening the interactions within DNA such that, unlike in the gas phase, ionization of a base, nucleoside, or nucleotide depends only very weakly on the particular DNA context. An exception is the electronic interaction between neighboring bases which can lead to sequence-specific effects, such as a partial delocalization of the cationic hole upon ionization enabled by presence of adjacent bases of the same type.

Free electrons and ionic liquids: study of excited states by means of electron-energy loss spectroscopy and the density functional theory multireference configuration interaction method

Collisions of slow electrons with ionic liquids and DFT/MRCI calculations reveal triplet states and interesting physics at low energies.