How acid can become a dihydrogen complex in water? A DFT study

To accurate know the acidity of a dihydrogen molecule coordinated to a transition metal ion in water medium is an issue of interest in many areas, from electrochemistry to enzymes and catalysis. However, experimental determination of this magnitude is challenging, and very few values have been repor...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ortuño, Manuel A.|||0000-0002-6175-3941, Lledós, Agustí|||0000-0001-7909-422X
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:249239
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/249239
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1016/j.jorganchem.2021.121957
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Dihydrogen complexes
Pka
Water solvent
DFT calculations
Discrete-continuum solvation methods
Descripción
Sumario:To accurate know the acidity of a dihydrogen molecule coordinated to a transition metal ion in water medium is an issue of interest in many areas, from electrochemistry to enzymes and catalysis. However, experimental determination of this magnitude is challenging, and very few values have been reported. In this article we describe a computational protocol, based on DFT calculations and employing a discrete-continuum solvent representation, to estimate pK of transition metal dihydrogen complexes. In this approach the number of solvent molecules explicitly included in the calculations is determined by the convergence with the solvation Gibbs energy of the proton in the solvent. The approach has been initially validated with experimental data in tetrahydrofuran (THF) solvent. Using (THF) clusters a mean absolute deviation from experiments of only 1.4 pK unit is achieved. In water the convergence is reached with (HO) clusters. Using them in a discrete-continuum model, the pK of twelve dihydrogen complexes experimentally characterized in water have been computed. pK values span a wide range, from 23 to -4, illustrating how coordination to a transition metal modifies the dihydrogen acidity. Decomposition of the ∆G of the acid-base equilibrium in two contributions, one intrinsic to the complex and another one accounting for solvent effects enables a deeper analysis of the dihydrogen acidities.