Hydrogen Bonding in Aromatic Alcohol-Water Clusters: A Brief Review

Abstract

Recent experimental and theoretical advances on the aromatic alcohol-water clusters are reviewed, focusing on the structure of the hydrogen bonding between the alcoholic OH group and the binding water molecules. The interplay of experimental observations and theoretical calculations for the elucidation of the structure is demonstrated for phenol-water, benzyl alcohol-water, substituted phenol-water, naphthol-water and tropolone-water clusters. Discussion is made on assigning the role (either proton-donating or-accepting) of the hydroxyl group by measuring the shifts of infrared frequency of the OH stretching mode in the cluster from that of bare aromatic alcohol for the experimental determination of the cluster structure