Role of electronic polarization on the liquid phase affinity of calixarene-crown-ethers towards alkali cations: a QM/MM molecular dynamics simulation

摘要

We report molecular dynamics simulations of calixarene-crown-ether complexes with alkali cations in water using hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) potentials. The approach allows us, for the first time in this kind of systems, to make a detailed discussion on the role of electronic polarization. Such an effect had been omitted in previous studies of calixarene-alkali cation complexes, although it is known to be important in many host-guest systems. The macrocycle, calix[4]arene-bis-crown6 (BC6), is treated at the semiempirical AM1 level whereas solvent water molecules are treated using the TIP3P model. The alkali metal cations (Na~+ and Cs~+) are described as classical point charges with a set of Lennard-Jones parameters developed in this work. The polarization component is shown to be substantial and may represent 20% of the total electrostatic energy. We show that instantaneous fluctuation of the net atomic charge on O atoms and aromatic rings are quite large. The structural results predicted by the AM1/TIP3P model are shown to agree reasonably well with X-ray data. Comparison with previous MM simulations using effective pairwise additive potentials is made. Some differences found in the case of the BC6/Na~+ system, namely for the solvation number, are discussed.