Electrostatic constant

Taking into consideration both the work of Ostwald, and that of Papkov, extended investigations into the ability of solvents to dissolve esters and ethers of cellulose have been carried out by Moll [53] who has linked the results of his experiments both with the electrostatic constants and with surface tension. The results of Moll s... 

Preferential Sorption/Capillary Rejection — the membrane is heterogeneous and microporous, electrostatic repulsion is based on different electrostatic constants in solution and membrane,... 

AHgb is the enthalpy of reaction between an acidic species A, and a basic species B. and Cg are the covalent constants for the acid and base, respectively, and E and Eg are the electrostatic constants for the acid and base. This approach is also not without limitation as it assumes that the two interacting species are purely acidic or basic, and does not take into account any interactions due to acid sites on the basic species, or basic sites on the acid. 

Added to these interactions are the electrostatic forces related to the dielectric constants and which are important when it is necessary to separate ionic components. 

In an extensive SFA study of protein receptor-ligand interactions, Leckband and co-workers [114] showed the importance of electrostatic, dispersion, steric, and hydrophobic forces in mediating the strong streptavidin-biotin interaction. Israelachvili and co-workers [66, 115] have measured the Hamaker constant for the dispersion interaction between phospholipid bilayers and find A = 7.5 1.5 X 10 erg in water. 

Determine the net DLVO interaction (electrostatic plus dispersion forces) for two large colloidal spheres having a surface potential 0 = 51.4 mV and a Hamaker constant of 3 x 10 erg in a 0.002Af solution of 1 1 electrolyte at 25°C. Plot U(x) as a function of x for the individual electrostatic and dispersion interactions as well as the net interaction. 

While the Systeme International d Unites (SI) system of units is not particularly relevant to physical chemistry and requires additional and sometimes awkward constants, its broad use deserves attention. The majority of the derivations are made in the cgs/esu (centimeter-gram-second/electrostatic unit) system of units however, both the SI and cgs systems are explained and tables for their interconversion are given in Chapters V and VI. 

Within the framework of the same dielectric continuum model for the solvent, the Gibbs free energy of solvation of an ion of radius and charge may be estimated by calculating the electrostatic work done when hypothetically charging a sphere at constant radius from q = 0 q = This yields the Bom equation [13]... 

In the reaction field method, the space surrounding a dipolar molecule is divided into two regions (i) a cavity, within which electrostatic interactions are sunnned explicitly, and (ii) a surrounding medium, which is assumed to act like a smooth continuum, and is assigned a dielectric constant e. Ideally, this quantity will be... 

The first term represents the forces due to the electrostatic field, the second describes forces that occur at the boundary between solute and solvent regime due to the change of dielectric constant, and the third term describes ionic forces due to the tendency of the ions in solution to move into regions of lower dielectric. Applications of the so-called PBSD method on small model systems and for the interaction of a stretch of DNA with a protein model have been discussed recently ([Elcock et al. 1997]). This simulation technique guarantees equilibrated solvent at each state of the simulation and may therefore avoid some of the problems mentioned in the previous section. Due to the smaller number of particles, the method may also speed up simulations potentially. Still, to be able to simulate long time scale protein motion, the method might ideally be combined with non-equilibrium techniques to enforce conformational transitions. 

Use of a Monte Carlo or a cluster (Hybrid) algorithm to calculate ionization constants of the titratable groups, net average charges, and electrostatic free energies as functions of pH. 

By using an effective, distance-dependent dielectric constant, the ability of bulk water to reduce electrostatic interactions can be mimicked without the presence of explicit solvent molecules. One disadvantage of aU vacuum simulations, corrected for shielding effects or not, is the fact that they cannot account for the ability of water molecules to form hydrogen bonds with charged and polar surface residues of a protein. As a result, adjacent polar side chains interact with each other and not with the solvent, thus introducing additional errors. 

Another way of calculating the electrostatic component of solvation uses the Poisson-Boltzmann equations [22, 23]. This formalism, which is also frequently applied to biological macromolecules, treats the solvent as a high-dielectric continuum, whereas the solute is considered as an array of point charges in a constant, low-dielectric medium. Changes of the potential within a medium with the dielectric constant e can be related to the charge density p according to the Poisson equation (Eq. (41)). 

In this model of electrostatic in teraction s, two atoms (i and j) have poin t charges tq and qj. The magnitude of the electrostatic energy (V[. , [ ) varies inversely with the distance between the atoms, Rjj. fh e effective dielectric constant is . For in vacuo simulations or simulation s with explicit water rn olecules, the den om in a tor equals uRjj, In some force fields, a distance-dependent dielectric, where the denominator is uRjj Rjj, represen is solvent implicitly. 

Caution C omparing the shifted constant dielectric to a constant dielectric function without a cutoff shows that the sh ifted dielectric, iin like a switch in g fun ction, perturbs the en tire electrostatic energy curve, not only the region near the cnioff. 

The fiinctioiial form for electrostatic in teraction s m AMBER is identical with that shown in equation (2fi) on page 179. You normally use a dielectric scaling of D=1 with AMBER com bin ed with a constant functional form when solvent molecules are explicitly... 

Our discussion of elecfronic effects has concentrated so far on permanent features of the cliarge distribution. Electrostatic interactions also arise from changes in the charge distribution of a molecule or atom caused by an external field, a process called polarisation. The primary effect of the external electric field (which in our case will be caused by neighbouring molecules) is to induce a dipole in the molecule. The magnitude of the induced dipole moment ginj is proportional to the electric field E, with the constant of proportionahty being the polarisability a ... 

In the reaction field method, a sphere is constructed around the molecule with a radius equal to the cutoff distance. The interaction with molecules that are within the sphere is calculated explicitly. To this is added the energy of interaction with the medium beyond the sphere, which is rnodelled as a homogeneous medium of dielectric constant g (Figure 6.23). The electrostatic field due to the surrounding dielectric is given by ... 

Ire boundary element method of Kashin is similar in spirit to the polarisable continuum model, lut the surface of the cavity is taken to be the molecular surface of the solute [Kashin and lamboodiri 1987 Kashin 1990]. This cavity surface is divided into small boimdary elements, he solute is modelled as a set of atoms with point polarisabilities. The electric field induces 1 dipole proportional to its polarisability. The electric field at an atom has contributions from lipoles on other atoms in the molecule, from polarisation charges on the boundary, and where appropriate) from the charges of electrolytes in the solution. The charge density is issumed to be constant within each boundary element but is not reduced to a single )oint as in the PCM model. A set of linear equations can be set up to describe the electrostatic nteractions within the system. The solutions to these equations give the boundary element harge distribution and the induced dipoles, from which thermodynamic quantities can be letermined. 

The final class of methods that we shall consider for calculating the electrostatic compone of the solvation free energy are based upon the Poisson or the Poisson-Boltzmann equatior Ihese methods have been particularly useful for investigating the electrostatic properties biological macromolecules such as proteins and DNA. The solute is treated as a body of co stant low dielectric (usually between 2 and 4), and the solvent is modelled as a continuum high dielectric. The Poisson equation relates the variation in the potential (f> within a mediu of uniform dielectric constant e to the charge density p ... 

---