Počátek solvatace iontů studovaný ab initio výpočty: Srovnání vody a methanolu

Katedra fyzikální a makromol. chemieDepartment of Physical and Macromolecular ChemistryFaculty of SciencePřírodovědecká fakult

From gas phase via microhydration to bulk water simulations

The salt bridge formation and stability in the terminated lysine-glutamate dipeptide is investigated in water clusters of increasing size up to the limit of bulk water. Proton transfer dynamics between the acidic and basic side chains is described by DFT-based Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations. While the desolvated peptide prefers to be in its neutral state, already the addition of a single water molecule can trigger proton transfer from the glutamate side chain to the lysine side chain, leading to a zwitterionic salt bridge state. Upon adding more water molecules we find that stabilization of the zwitterionic state critically depends on the number of hydrogen bonds between side chain termini, the water molecules, and the peptidic backbone. Employing classical molecular dynamics simulations for larger clusters, we observed that the salt bridge is weakened upon additional hydration. Consequently, long-lived solvent shared ion pairs are observed for about 30 water molecules while solvent separated ion pairs are found when at least 40 or more water molecules hydrate the dipeptide. These results have implications for the formation and stability of salt bridges at partially dehydrated surfaces of aqueous proteins

‘Unearthing the legacies of art historiography during the Post-War decades’. Review of: A Socialist Realist History? Writing Art History in the Post-War Decadesedited by Krista Kodres, Kristina Jõekalda, Michaela Marek, Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2019, 279 pp., 35 b/w illustrations, ISBN 978-3-412-51161-6 (=Robert Born, Michaela Marek, Ada Raev: Das östliche Europa: Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, vol. 9)

A Socialist Realist History? Writing Art History in the Post-War Decades, edited by Krista Kodres, Kristina Jõekalda, and the late Michaela Marek, is of definitive interest to art historians and scholars of intellectual history of Europe for giving insight into the diverse ways in which art and architectural historians across socialist Central and Eastern Europe engaged with Marxism-Leninism. The wide-ranging contributions reveal that even during Stalinism the discourse on Socialist art history was never static. Slow to modernize during the ensuing Thaw, this discourse evolved in diverse ways within different academic environments. The book makes a highly valuable contribution to the study of art historiography in socialist Europe, deepening our understanding of the complexity and processuality of the discipline’s development, and underlining the need for further in-depth studies. Apart from its interest to art historians, the contributions clearly express the need for a thorough revision of how deeply contemporary art historical research has been shaped by the socialist legacy, particularly with regard to less obvious path dependencies such as methodological approaches

Calcium ions in aqueous solutions: Accurate force field description aided by ab initio molecular dynamics and neutron scattering

International audienc

Chasing charge localization and chemical reactivity following photoionization in liquid water

This is the published version, also available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3664746.The ultrafast dynamics of the cationic hole formed in bulk liquid water following ionization is investigated by ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and an experimentally accessible signature is suggested that might be tracked by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. This is one of the fastest fundamental processes occurring in radiation-induced chemistry in aqueous systems and biological tissue. However, unlike the excess electron formed in the same process, the nature and time evolution of the cationic hole has been hitherto little studied. Simulations show that an initially partially delocalized cationic hole localizes within ∼30 fs after which proton transfer to a neighboring water molecule proceeds practically immediately, leading to the formation of the OH radical and the hydronium cation in a reaction which can be formally written as H2O+ + H2O → OH + H3O+. The exact amount of initial spin delocalization is, however, somewhat method dependent, being realistically described by approximate density functional theory methods corrected for the self-interaction error. Localization, and then the evolving separation of spin and charge, changes the electronic structure of the radical center. This is manifested in the spectrum of electronic excitations which is calculated for the ensemble of ab initio molecular dynamics trajectories using a quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) formalism applying the equation of motion coupled-clusters method to the radical core. A clear spectroscopic signature is predicted by the theoretical model: as the hole transforms into a hydroxyl radical, a transient electronic absorption in the visible shifts to the blue, growing toward the near ultraviolet. Experimental evidence for this primary radiation-induced process is sought using femtosecond photoionization of liquid water excited with two photons at 11 eV. Transient absorption measurements carried out with ∼40 fs time resolution and broadband spectral probing across the near-UV and visible are presented and direct comparisons with the theoretical simulations are made. Within the sensitivity and time resolution of the current measurement, a matching spectral signature is not detected. This result is used to place an upper limit on the absorption strength and/or lifetime of the localized H2O+ (aq) species

Chasing charge localization and chemical reactivity following photoionization in liquid

The ultrafast dynamics of the cationic hole formed in bulk liquid water following ionization is investigated by ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and an experimentally accessible signature is suggested that might be tracked by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. This is one of the fastest fundamental processes occurring in radiation-induced chemistry in aqueous systems and biological tissue. However, unlike the excess electron formed in the same process, the nature and time evolution of the cationic hole has been hitherto little studied. Simulations show that an initially partially delocalized cationic hole localizes within ∼30 fs after which proton transfer to a neighboring water molecule proceeds practically immediately, leading to the formation of the OH radical and the hydronium cation in a reaction which can be formally written as The exact amount of initial spin delocalization is, however, somewhat method dependent, being realistically described by approximate density functional theory methods corrected for the self-interaction error. Localization, and then the evolving separation of spin and charge, changes the electronic structure of the radical center. This is manifested in the spectrum of electronic excitations which is calculated for the ensemble of ab initio molecular dynamics trajectories using a quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) formalism applying the equation of motion coupled-clusters method to the radical core. A clear spectroscopic signature is predicted by the theoretical model: as the hole transforms into a hydroxyl radical, a transient electronic absorption in the visible shifts to the blue, growing toward the near ultraviolet. Experimental evidence for this primary radiation-induced process is sought using femtosecond photoionization of liquid water excited with two photons at 11 eV. Transient absorption measurements carried out with ∼40 fs time resolution and broadband spectral probing across the near-UV and visible are presented and direct comparisons with the theoretical simulations are made. Within the sensitivity and time resolution of the current measurement, a matching spectral signature is not detected. This result is used to place an upper limit on the absorption strength and/or lifetime of the localized H 2 O + (aq) species

Observation of electron transfer mediated decay in aqueous solution

Photoionization is at the heart of X ray photoelectron spectroscopy XPS , which gives access to important information on a sample s local chemical environment. Local and non local electronic decay after photoionization in which the refilling of core holes results in electron emission from either the initially ionized species or a neighbour, respectively have been well studied. However, electron transfer mediated decay ETMD , which involves the refilling of a core hole by an electron from a neighbouring species, has not yet been observed in condensed phase. Here we report the experimental observation of ETMD in an aqueous LiCl solution by detecting characteristic secondary low energy electrons using liquid microjet soft XPS. Experimental results are interpreted using molecular dynamics and high level ab initio calculations. We show that both solvent molecules and counterions participate in the ETMD processes, and different ion associations have distinctive spectral fingerprints. Furthermore, ETMD spectra are sensitive to coordination numbers, ion solvent distances and solvent arrangemen