Solvation quantum-chemical calculations

In order to gain information on the environments of certain atoms in dissolved species, in melts or in solids (crystalline or noncrystalline), which are not accessible to diffraction studies for one reason or another, X-ray absorption spectrometry (XAS) can be applied, with the analysis of the X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) and/or the extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). Surveys of these methods are available 39,40 a representative study of the solvation of some mercury species, ElgX2, in water and dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) by EXAFS and XANES, combined with quantum-chemical calculations, has been published.41... 

It should be kept in mind that quantum chemical calculations of structures and magnetic properties generally are done for the isolated carbocation without taking into account its environment and media effects such as solvent, site-specific solvation or counterion effects. This is a critical question since NMR spectra of carbocations with a few exceptions are studied in superacid solutions and properties calculated for the gas-phase species are of little relevance if the electronic structure of carbocations is strongly perturbed by solvent effects. Provided that appropriate methods are used,... 

The reactant R2 can also be considered to be a solvent molecule. The global kinetics become pseudo first order in Rl. For a SNl mechanism, the bond breaking in R1 can be solvent assisted in the sense that the ionic fluctuation state is stabilized by solvent polarization effects and the probability of having an interconversion via heterolytic decomposition is facilitated by the solvent. This is actually found when external and/or reaction field effects are introduced in the quantum chemical calculation of the energy of such species [2]. The kinetics, however, may depend on the process moving the system from the contact ionic-pair to a solvent-separated ionic pair, but the interconversion step takes place inside the contact ion-pair following the quantum mechanical mechanism described in section 4.1. Solvation then should ensure quantum resonance conditions. 

The existence of critical solvation numbers for a given process to happen is an important concept. Quantum chemical calculations using ancillary solvent molecules usually produce drastic changes on the electronic nature of saddle points of index one (SPi-1) when comparisons are made with those that have been determined in absence of such solvent molecules. Such results can not be used to show the lack of invariance of a given quantum transition structure without further ado. Solvent cluster calculations must be carefully matched with experimental information on such species, they cannot be used to represent solvation effects in condensed phases. 

The alternative theoretical scheme for studying chemical reactivity in solution, the supermolecule approach, allows for the investigation of the solvation phenomena at a microscopic level. However, it does not enable the characterization of long-range bulk solvent forces moreover, the number of solvent molecules required to properly represent bulk solvation for a given solute can be so large that to perform a quantum chemical calculation in such a system becomes prohibitively expensive. ... 

Recently, Wichmann et al. [47] applied several COSMO-RS cr-moments as descriptors to model BBB permeability. The performance of the log BB model was reasonable given only four descriptors were applied n — 103, r2 = 0.71, RMSE = 0.4, LOO q2 — 0.68, RMSEtest = 0.42. The COSMO-RS cr-moments were obtained from quantum chemical calculations using the continuum solvation model COSMO and a subsequent statistical decomposition of the resulting polarization charge densities. 

The quantum-chemical calculation of charge-transfer states as possible intermediates in electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions, making allowance for solvation effects, has been reviewed.6 It has been shown that a simple scaled Hartree-Fock ab initio model describes the ring proton affinity of some polysubstituted benzenes, naphthalenes, biphenylenes, and large alternant aromatics, in agreement with experimental values. The simple additivity rule observed previously in smaller... 

In principle, quantum-chemical theory should be able to provide precise quantitative descriptions of molecular structures and their chemical properties however, due to mathematical and computational complexities this seems unlikely to be realized in the foreseeable future. Thus, researchers need to rely on approximate methods that have now become routine and have found wide applications. In many cases, errors due to the approximate nature of quantum-chemical calculations and the neglect of the solvation effects are largely transferable within structurally related series (Karelson and Lobanov, 1996). Thus, relative values of calculated descriptors can be meaningful even though their absolute values are not directly applicable. 

The problem of tautomeric equilibriums in annelated 1,5-diazepines was studied in [68] by means of NMR spectroscopy, X-ray analysis and quantum-chemical calculations. It was shown that the electron-withdrawing rings (e.g., pyrimidine moiety) fused with the diazepine cycle increase the stability of the antiaromatic enamine tautomeric forms A and C, while in the case of benzodiazepine, a diimine tautomer B was found to be the most stable. Ab initio quantum-chemical calculations and NMR spectroscopic data showed that solvation of seven-membered heterocycles with polar solvents contributes considerably to the stabilization of the enamine forms A and C. This assumption was also proven by X-ray analysis, which showed that in the solid state these diazepines exist in the diimine form B. 

The AMSOL model and the related SMx methods [22] are based on semi-empirical quantum chemical calculations. Normally these models use a GB approximation for the dielectric contribution of AG of solvation, but COSMO has also been used for one parameterization. In order to overcome the large electrostatic errors of bare semi-empirical methods, charge models have been developed, which improve the electrostatic... 

Most of the quantum chemical calculations of the nuclear shielding constants have involved two classes of solvation models, which belong to the second group of models (n), namely, the continuum group (i) the apparent surface charge technique (ASC) in formulation C-PCM and IEF-PCM, and (ii) models based on a multipolar expansion of the reaction filed (MPE). The PCM formalism with its representation of the solvent field through an ASC approach is more flexible as far as the cavity shape is concerned, which permits solvent effects to be taken into account in a more accurate manner. 

The second chapter ends with two overviews by Stephens Devlin and by Hug on the theoretical and the physical aspects of two vibrational optical activity spectroscopies (VCD and VROA, respectively). In both overviews the emphasis is more on their basic formalism and the gas-phase quantum chemical calculations than on the analysis of solvent effects. For these spectroscopies, in fact, both the formulation of continuum solvation models and their applications to realistic solvated systems are still in their infancy. 

Accurate predictions of solute interactions with a limited number of solvent molecules are possible using the supermolecular approximation. This is an approach based on the consideration of the dissolved molecule together with the limited number of solvent molecules as the unified system. The quantum-chemical calculations are performed on the complex of the solute molecule surrounded by as many solvent molecules as possible. The main advantage of the supermolecular approximation is the ability to take into account such specific effects of solvation as hydrogen bonding between the selected sites of the solvated molecules and the molecules of the solvent. In principle there are only two restrictions for the supermolecular approximation. One of them is the internal limitations of the quantum-chemical methods. The second restriction is the limitation of the current computer technology. Because of such restrictions this approximation coupled with ab initio molecular dynamics is possible only for small model systems.46-50... 

Another well-known example is D-glucopyranose, the anomeric equilibrium mixture of which is made up of 36% of the axial a anomer and 64% of the equatorial j3 anomer at 20 °C in water as a polar solvent sr = 78), with AG a j3) = —1.4 kJ/ mol [82], This is in agreement with free-energy simulations with an empirical force field [285] and quantum-chemical calculations [286], showing that the preference of d-glucopyranose for the y9-anomer in water is mainly due to electrostatic solvation and hydrogen-bonding effects, which stabilize the more dipolar y9-anomer better than the a-anomer. 

Combined QM/MM methods, pioneered by Warshel and Levitt, [10] can be introduced either from the point of view of conventional molecular simulation methods or from the viewpoint of quantum chemical calculations. To clarify the latter case we recall that in computational Quantum Chemistry the calculations are carried out in vacuum and at OK, which, of course, does not always correspond to the most desirable conditions. Quantum chemists early adopted the continuum models [11] to develop their solvation models, hoping to bring the solvent medium into their calculations. Therefore, the combined QM/MM simulations... 

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