Doubling the Carbonate-Binding Capacity of Nanojars by the Formation of Expanded Nanojars

Anion binding and extraction from solutions is currently a dynamic research topic in the field of supramolecular chemistry. A particularly challenging task is the extraction of anions with large hydration energies, such as the carbonate ion. Carbonate-binding complexes are also receiving increased interest due to their relevance to atmospheric CO2 fixation. Nanojars are a class of self-assembled, supramolecular coordination complexes that have been shown to bind highly hydrophilic anions and to extract even the most hydrophilic ones, including carbonate, from water into aliphatic solvents. Here we present an expanded nanojar that is able to bind two carbonate ions, thus doubling the previously reported carbonate-binding capacity of nanojars. The new nanojar is characterized by detailed single-crystal X-ray crystallographic studies in the solid state and electrospray ionization mass spectrometric (including tandem MS/MS) studies in solution.

Fast and accurate calculation of hydration energies of molecules and ions

An accurate and efficient method for calculation of hydration free energy of ions and neutral molecules is presented.

A simple COSMO-based method for calculation of hydration energies of neutral molecules

A simple yet accurate method to estimate hydration free energy of neutral molecules is developed.

Correlation between Computed Ion Hydration Properties and Experimental Values of Sugar Transfer through Nanofiltration and Ion Exchange Membranes in Presence of Electrolyte

The widespread use of nanofiltration and electrodialysis membrane processes is slowed down by the difficulties in predicting the membrane performances for treating streams of variable ionic compositions. Correlations between ion hydration properties and solute transfer can help to overcome this drawback. This research aims to investigate the correlation between theoretically evaluated hydration properties of major ions in solution and experimental values of neutral organic solute fluxes. In particular, ion hydration energies, coordination and hydration number and the average ion-water distance of Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl− and SO42− were calculated at a high quantum mechanics level and compared with experimental sugar fluxes previously reported. The properties computed by simple and not computationally expensive models were validated with information from the literature. This work discusses the correlation between the hydration energies of ions and fluxes of three saccharides, measured through nanofiltration and ionic-exchange membranes. In nanofiltration, the sugar flux increases with the presence of ions of increasing hydration energy. Instead, inverse linear correlations were found between the hydration energy and the sugar fluxes through ion exchange membranes. Finally, an empirical model is proposed for a rough evaluation of the variation in sugar fluxes as function of hydration energy for the ion exchange membranes in diffusion experiments.

Binding energies of hydrated cobalt(ii) by collision-induced dissociation and theoretical studies: evidence for a new critical size

Thermochemical determination of Co2+(H2O)x, where x = 4–11, hydration energies by guided ion beam tandem mass spectrometry and using quantum chemical calculations.

Evaluating the London Dispersion Coefficients of Protein Force Fields Using the Exchange-Hole Dipole Moment Model

<div>London dispersion is one of the fundamental intermolecular interactions involved in protein folding and dynamics. The popular CHARMM36, Amber ff14sb, and OPLS-</div><div>AA force fields represent these interactions through the C6 /r 6 term of the Lennard-Jones potential. The C6 parameters are assigned empirically, so these parameters are</div><div>not necessarily a realistic representation of the true dispersion interactions. In this work, dispersion coefficients of all three force fields were compared to corresponding</div><div>values from quantum-chemical calculations using the exchange-hole dipole moment (XDM) model. The force field values were found to be roughly 50% larger than the XDM values for protein backbone and side-chain models. The CHARMM36 and Amber OL15 force fields for nucleic acids were also found to exhibit this trend. To explore how these elevated dispersion coefficients affect predicted properties, the hydration energies of the side-chain models were calculated using the staged REMD-TI method of Deng and Roux for the CHARMM36, Amber ff14sb, and OPLS-AA force fields. Despite having large C 6 dispersion coefficients, these force fields predict side-chain hydration energies that are in generally good agreement with the experimental values, including for hydrocarbon residues where the dispersion component is the dominant attractive solute–solvent interaction. This suggests that these force fields predict the correct total strength of dispersion interactions, despite C6 coefficients that are considerably larger than XDM predicts. An analytical expression for the water–methane dispersion energy using XDM dispersion coefficients shows that that higher-order dispersion terms(i.e., C 8 and C 10 ) account for roughly 37.5% of the hydration energy of methane. This suggests that the C 6 dispersion coefficients used in contemporary force fields are</div><div>elevated to account for the neglected higher-order terms. Force fields that include higher-order dispersion interactions could resolve this issue.</div>