The lowest band in the charge-transfer-to-solvent ultraviolet absorption spectrum of aqueous chloride ion is studied by experiment and computation. Interestingly, the experiments indicate that at concentrations up to at least 0.25 M, where calculations indicate ion pairing to be significant, there is no notable effect of ionic strength on the spectrum. The experimental spectra are fitted to aid comparison with computations. Classical molecular dynamic simulations are carried out on dilute aqueous Cl-, Na+, and NaCl, producing radial distribution functions in reasonable agreement with experiment and, for NaCl, clear evidence of ion pairing. Clusters are extracted from the simulations for quantum mechanical excited state calculations. Accurate ab initio coupled-cluster benchmark calculations on a small number of representative clusters are carried out and used to identify and validate an efficient protocol based on time-dependent density functional theory. The latter is used to carry out quantum mechanical calculations on thousands of clusters. The resulting computed spectrum is in excellent agreement with experiment for the peak position, with little influence from ion pairing, but is in qualitative disagreement on the width, being only about half as wide. It is concluded that simulation by classical molecular dynamics fails to provide an adequate variety of structures to explain the experimental CTTS spectrum of aqueous Cl-.

The nature and extent of hydrogen bonding in water has been scrutinized for decades, including how it manifests in optical properties. Here we report vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectra for the lowest-lying electronic state of subcritical and supercritical water. For subcritical water, the spectrum redshifts considerably with increasing temperature, demonstrating the gradual breakdown of the hydrogen-bond network. Tuning the density at 381 °C gives insight into the extent of hydrogen bonding in supercritical water. The known gas-phase spectrum, including its vibronic structure, is duplicated in the low-density limit. With increasing density, the spectrum blueshifts and the vibronic structure is quenched as the water monomer becomes electronically perturbed. Fits to the supercritical water spectra demonstrate consistency with dimer/trimer fractions calculated from the water virial equation of state and equilibrium constants. Using the known water dimer interaction potential, we estimate the critical distance between molecules (ca. 4.5 Å) needed to explain the vibronic structure quenching.

A variety of density functionals and Gaussian basis sets has been studied for performance in calculations of core-electron binding energies of the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen nuclei in the gaseous amino acids glycine, alanine, proline, threonine, and methionine. The main goal of this study is the identification of methods that will be sufficiently accurate and efficient to be used for analysis of experimental X-ray photoelectron spectra of amino acids, large polypeptides, and DNA nucleosides in various environments. The various methods studied are evaluated based on consideration of their performance for calculation of relative conformer energies, core-electron binding energies, and chemical shifts of the binding energies, using common popular density functionals with small basis sets.

The hemibonding interaction in the water dimer cation is studied using coupled cluster electronic structure methods. The hemibonded dimer cation geometry is a local minimum structure characterized by the two participating monomers having both a very short separation and a near parallel relative orientation. It is shown that the vertically ionized dimer at its optimum neutral geometry can convert to the hemibonded dimer cation structure with essentially no energetic hindrance. Direct conversion to the hemibonded structure is therefore an energetically facile alternative to the minimum energy path that connects the vertically ionized neutral water dimer to the global minimum proton-transferred structure. A substantial barrier must be surmounted to convert the hemibonded dimer cation to the proton-transferred structure. The optical absorption spectrum of the hemibonded dimer cation is characterized by three excited near-UV states, two of which have very large oscillator strengths. Relative resonance Raman intensities are estimated for the hemibonded dimer cation vibrational modes, finding the intermolecular stretching mode to be the most strongly enhanced when in near resonance with each of the near-UV excited states, and the anharmonicity and overtones of this mode are estimated. These results provide guidance for the possible observation of hemibonded cations in irradiated liquid water.

A composite method for implicit representation of solvent previously developed to compute aqueous free energies of solvation is extended to accommodate the polar aprotic solvents dimethyl sulfoxide and acetonitrile. The method combines quantum mechanical calculation of the solute electronic structure with a modern dielectric continuum model for long-range electrostatic interactions with solvent and individual models for short-range interactions arising from dispersion, exchange, and hydrogen bonding. The few parameters involved are optimized to fit a standard data set of experimental solvation energies for neutrals and ions. Results are better than other models in the literature, with average errors for ions comparable to or smaller than the estimated experimental errors. Some circumstantial evidence is also obtained to support One of the competing extrathermodynamic arguments recently used to determine the solvation energies of the proton, which are needed to separate measurements of paired cation plus anion solvation energies into absolute single ion solvation energies in these solvents.

A summary of the technical advances that are incorporated in the fourth major release of the Q-Chem quantum chemistry program is provided, covering approximately the last seven years. These include developments in density functional theory methods and algorithms, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) property evaluation, coupled cluster and perturbation theories, methods for electronically excited and open-shell species, tools for treating extended environments, algorithms for walking on potential surfaces, analysis tools, energy and electron transfer modelling, parallel computing capabilities, and graphical user interfaces. In addition, a selection of example case studies that illustrate these capabilities is given. These include extensive benchmarks of the comparative accuracy of modern density functionals for bonded and non-bonded interactions, tests of attenuated second order Møller–Plesset (MP2) methods for intermolecular interactions, a variety of parallel performance benchmarks, and tests of the accuracy of implicit solvation models. Some specific chemical examples include calculations on the strongly correlated Cr2 dimer, exploring zeolite-catalysed ethane dehydrogenation, energy decomposition analysis of a charged ter-molecular complex arising from glycerol photoionisation, and natural transition orbitals for a Frenkel exciton state in a nine-unit model of a self-assembling nanotube.

This project was originally funded for the three year period from 09/01/2009 to 08/31/2012. Subsequently a No-Cost Extension was approved for a revised end date of 11/30/2013. The primary goals of the project were to develop continuum solvation models for nondielectric short-range interactions between solvent and solute that arise from dispersion, exchange, and hydrogen bonding. These goals were accomplished and are reported in the five peer-reviewed journal publications listed in the bibliography below. The secondary goals of the project included derivation of analytic gradients for the models, improvement of the cavity integration scheme, application of the models to the core-level spectroscopy of water, and several other miscellaneous items. These goals were not accomplished because they depended on completion of the primary goals, after which there was a lack of time for any additional effort.

A number of density functionals are benchmarked for calculation of 1s core electron binding energies for carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen nuclei in glycine, and for comparison in the first-row hydrides methane, ammonia, and water. The goal is to establish methods having potential to aid the analysis of experimental X-ray photoelectron spectra on compounds such as amino acids, DNA nucleosides, and large polypeptides in various environments. Several promising density functionals are identified that can reproduce experimental results within 0.2 eV on average for the absolute binding energies and also for the intramolecular and intermolecular shifts in the studied molecules.

A number of Gaussian basis sets has been studied for performance in density functional calculations of core electron binding energies and chemical shifts of the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen nuclei in the first-row hydrides methane, ammonia, and water, and in glycine. The ultimate goal is to identify methods sufficiently accurate and efficient to aid analysis of experimental X-ray photoelectron spectra for amino acids, large polypeptides, and DNA nucleosides in various environments. Several combinations of density functionals and basis sets have been identified as promising for such calculations with average accuracy of 0.20 eV or better.

The formation of monocarbon cluster ions has been investigated by electron ionization mass spectrometry of cold helium nanodroplets doped with nitrogen/methane mixtures. Ion yields for two groups of clusters, CHmN2(+) or CHmN4(+), were determined for mixtures with different molecular ratios of CH4. The possible geometrical structures of these clusters were analyzed using electronic structure computations. Little correlation between the ion yields and the associated binding energies has been observed indicating that in most cases kinetic control is more important than thermodynamic control for forming the clusters.

Implicit solvation models provide a very efficient means to estimate solvation energies. For example, dielectric continuum models are commonly used to obtain the long-range electrostatic interactions. These may be parametrized to also include in some average manner short-range interactions such as dispersion and exchange, but it is preferable to instead develop additional implicit models specifically designed for the short-range interactions. This work proposes new models for dispersion and exchange interactions between solute and solvent by adapting approaches previously developed for treatment of gas-phase intermolecular forces. The new models are formulated in terms of the charge densities of the solutes and use only three adjustable parameters. To illustrate the performance of the models, electronic structure calculations are reported for a large number of solutes in two nonpolar solvents where short-range interactions dominate and different balances pertain between attractive dispersion and repulsive exchange contributions. After empirical optimization of the requisite parameters, it is found that the errors compared to experimental solvation free energies are only about 0.4 kcal/mol on average, which is better than previous approaches in the literature that invoke many more parameters.

The CMIRS1.0 (composite method for implicit representation of solvent, Version 1.0) model is introduced for efficacious and inexpensive computation of hydration free energies. The method collects together several disparate models designed to describe short-range dispersion, exchange, and hydrogen bonding interactions as well as long-range electrostatic interactions. All the interactions are formulated as functionals of the solute charge density. The model uses only six adjustable parameters to determine the various short-range terms. In conjunction with an isodensity criterion that uses one parameter to determine the solute cavity size and shape, the model is tested on a large database of neutral and ionic solutes in water. The mean unsigned error compared to experiment is found to be as low as 0.8 kcal/mol for neutral solutes and 2.4 kcal/mol for ionic solutes, which is comparable to or better than other analogous approaches in the literature that invoke many more fitting parameters.

The aqueous hydrogen atom is studied with molecular dynamics simulations from ambient temperature to near the critical point. The radial distribution functions find a hydrogen atom coordination number of about 13 water molecules at 300 K to about 4 water molecules at 646 K. The radial and angular distribution functions indicate that first-shell water molecules tend to orient to maximize hydrogen bonding interactions with other water molecules. These orientational tendencies diminish with temperature. The calculated diffusion coefficient agrees very well with experimental results known near ambient temperatures. It fits a simple activation model to about 575 K, above which the diffusion becomes much faster than predicted by the fit. To temperatures of at least 500 K there is evidence for caging on a time scale of about 1 ps, but the evidence disappears at very high temperatures. Values of the aqueous hydrogen hyperfine coupling constant are obtained by averaging the results of density functional calculations on clusters extracted from the simulations. The hyperfine coupling calculations do not agree well with experiment for reasons that are not understood now, pointing to the need for further research on this problem.

The flexible polarizable AMOEBA force field for water is tested with classical molecular dynamics simulations from ambient up to supercritical conditions. Good results are obtained for the heat of vaporization, dielectric constant, self-diffusion constant, and radial distribution functions provided densities are fixed at the experimental values. If instead the densities are allowed to relax to those characteristic of the liquid-gas equilibrium for the model, then satisfactory results are obtained near ambient conditions, whereas at high temperatures the liquid densities are generally underestimated and the gas densities overestimated. As a consequence, the critical point of the model is reached at significantly too low temperature, although it occurs at approximately the correct density.