Quantitative Kinetic Model of CO2 Absorption in Aqueous Tertiary Amine Solvents.

Aqueous tertiary amine solutions are increasingly used in industrial CO2 capture operations because they are more energy-efficient than primary or secondary amines and demonstrate higher CO2 absorption capacity. Yet, tertiary amine solutions have a significant drawback in that they tend to have lower CO2 absorption rates. To identify tertiary amines that absorb CO2 faster, it would be efficacious to have a quantitative and predictive model of the rate-controlling processes. Despite numerous attempts to date, this goal has been elusive. The present computational approach achieves this goal by focusing on the reaction of CO2 with OH- forming HCO3-. The performance of the resulting model is demonstrated for a consistent experimental data set of the absorption rates of CO2 for 24 different aqueous tertiary amine solvents. The key to the new model's success is the manner in which the free energy barrier for the reaction of CO2 with OH- is evaluated from the differences among the solvation free energies of CO2, OH-, and HCO3-, while the pKa of the amines controls the concentration of OH-. These solvation energies are obtained from molecular dynamics simulations. The experimental value of the free energy of reaction of CO2 with pure water is combined with information about measured rates of absorption of CO2 in an aqueous amine solvent in order to calibrate the absorption rate model. This model achieves a relative accuracy better than 0.1 kJ mol-1 for the free energies of activation for CO2 absorption in aqueous amine solutions and 0.07 g L-1 min-1 for the absorption rate of CO2. Such high accuracies are necessary to predict the correct experimental ranking of CO2 absorption rates, thus providing a quantitative approach of practical interest.

Molecular Level Characterization of the Structure and Interactions in Peptide-Functionalized Metal-Organic Frameworks.

We use density functional theory, newly parameterized molecular dynamics simulations, and last generation 15 N dynamic nuclear polarization surface enhanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy (DNP SENS) to understand graft-host interactions and effects imposed by the metal-organic framework (MOF) host on peptide conformations in a peptide-functionalized MOF. Focusing on two grafts typified by MIL-68-proline (-Pro) and MIL-68-glycine-proline (-Gly-Pro), we identified the most likely peptide conformations adopted in the functionalized hybrid frameworks. We found that hydrogen bond interactions between the graft and the surface hydroxyl groups of the MOF are essential in determining the peptides conformation(s). DNP SENS methodology shows unprecedented signal enhancements when applied to these peptide-functionalized MOFs. The calculated chemical shifts of selected MIL-68-NH-Pro and MIL-68-NH-Gly-Pro conformations are in a good agreement with the experimentally obtained 15 N NMR signals. The study shows that the conformations of peptides when grafted in a MOF host are unlikely to be freely distributed, and conformational selection is directed by strong host-guest interactions.

The mechanism of the initial step of germanosilicate formation in solution: a first-principles molecular dynamics study.

The condensation reactions between Ge(OH)4 and Si(OH)4 units in solution are studied to understand the mechanism and stable species during the initial steps of the formation process of Ge containing zeolites under basic conditions. The free energy of formation of (OH)3Ge-O-Ge-(OH)2O(-), (OH)3Si-O-Si-(OH)2O(-), (OH)3Ge-O-Si-(OH)2O(-) and (OH)3Si-O-Ge-(OH)2O(-) dimers is calculated with ab initio molecular dynamics and thermodynamic integration, including an explicit description of the water solvent molecules. Calculations show that the attack of the conjugated base (Ge(OH)3O(-) and Si(OH)3O(-)) proceeds with a smaller barrier at the Ge center. In addition, the formation of the pure germanate dimer is more favorable than that of the germano-silicate structure. These results explain the experimental observation of Ge-Ge and Si-Ge dimer species in solutions, with a few Si-Si ones.

Grafting trimethylaluminum and its halogen derivatives on silica: general trends for (27)Al SS-NMR response from first principles calculations.

(27)Al NMR is the method of choice for studying grafted Al species on a large area solid support, such as co-catalysts for α-olefin oligomerization involving mesoporous silica materials. Here, we show how to interpret the (27)Al solid-state NMR spectrum and parameters for various types of Al monomeric and dimeric alkyl and halogen compounds grafted on silica, based on the trends obtained from first-principles calculations. Since most alkylaluminum species tend to form dimers in the gas phase, we chose as prototypes both the AlMe3 monomer and the Al2Me6 dimer. On top of that the influence of chlorine substituents on the NMR parameters is explored considering all possible isomers. There are two main effects on the Al NMR parameters observed in the case of monomers: (i) the larger π-donating character of the ligands (from Me to Cl for example) leads to a decrease of the quadrupolar coupling constant CQ and (ii) the larger σ-attracting character of the ligand (from Cl to F for example) yields an upfield variation of the Al chemical shift δISO while in contrast CQ is increased. The same is true also in the case of dimeric species, with an additional specific effect. By (27)Al solid state NMR we can differentiate clearly between terminal and bridge positions for the substituents. The reason for this phenomenon is explained in terms of different natural localized MO (NLMO) contributions to the CQ parameter. This aspect is important because the surface sites for this type of system are expected to be mostly dinuclear Al species, grafted on the silica surface via either two terminal or two bridging siloxy ligands.

Size-dependent catalytic activity of supported vanadium oxide species: oxidative dehydrogenation of propane.

Possible reaction pathways for the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane by vanadium oxide catalysts supported on silica are examined by density functional theory. Monomeric and dimeric vanadium oxide species are both considered and modeled by vanadyl-substituted silsesquioxanes. The reaction proceeds in two subsequent steps. In a first step, hydrogen abstraction from propane by a vanadyl (O═V) group yields a propyl radical bound to a HOV(IV) surface site. Propene is formed by a second hydrogen abstraction, either at the same vanadia site or at a different one. V(V)/V(IV) redox cycles are preferred over V(V)/V(III) cycles. Under the assumption of fast reoxidation, microkinetic simulations show that the first step is rate-determining and yields Arrhenius barriers that are lower for dimers (114 kJ/mol at 750 K) than for monomers (124 kJ/mol). The rate constants predicted for a mixture of monomers and dimers are 14% larger (750 K) than for monomers only, although the increase remains within experimental uncertainty limits. Direct calculations of energy barriers also yield lower values for dimeric species than for monomeric ones. Reactivity descriptors indicate that this trend will continue also for larger oligomers. The size distribution of oligomeric species is predicted to be rather statistical. This, together with the small increase in the rate constants, explains that turnover frequencies observed for submonolayer coverages of vanadia on silica do not vary with the loading within the experimental uncertainty limits.

QMX: a versatile environment for hybrid calculations applied to the grafting of Al2Cl3Me3 on a silica surface.

We present a new software to easily perform QM:MM and QM:QM' calculations called QMX. It follows the subtraction scheme and it is implemented in the Atomic Simulation Environment (ASE). Special attention is paid to couple molecular calculations with periodic boundaries approaches. QMX inherits the flexibility and versatility of the ASE package: any combination of methods namely force field, semiempirical, first principle, and ab initio, can be used as hybrid potential energy surface (PES). Its ease of use is demonstrated by considering the adsorption of Al2Cl3Me3 on silica surface and by combining different levels of theory (from standard DFT to MP2 calculations) for the so-called High Level cluster with standard PW91 density functional theory calculations for the Low Level environment. It is shown that the High Level cluster must contain the silanol group close to the aluminum atoms. The bridging adsorption is favored by 58 kJ mol(-1) at the MP2:PW91 level with respect to the terminal position. Using large clusters at the MP2:PW91 level, it is shown that PW91 calculations are sufficient for structure optimization but that embedded methods are required for accurate energy profiles.

Inhibition of Aqueous Chemical Reactions by Strong Liquid Structure Makers: Experimental Demonstration with Amides and Acid-Base Reactions.

The chemical absorption of CO2 and H2S in aqueous tertiary amines is a well-known acid-base reaction. Kinetic and vapor-liquid equilibrium experiments show that the addition of an amide such as HMPA, which is known to be a strong liquid structure maker, significantly inhibits the acid-base reactions. The impact is more pronounced for CO2 than for H2S absorption. Despite the presence of water in the solvent, the absorption becomes almost physical. Due to hydrogen bonding and the hydrophobic effect, each amide molecule is involved in a cluster containing several water molecules, thus rendering the water molecules less available to participate in the reaction and to solvate HS- and HCO3- ions. This effect is absent when ethylene glycol, a weak structure maker, is added, even in large quantities. This study demonstrates the importance of solvent structure in the study of chemical reactions. State-of-the-art molecular dynamics simulations of the water-HMPA system could not reproduce the strongly negative excess volume of the mixture. This illustrates the need for more accurate force fields to simulate the structuring effect and their impact on chemical reactions.

Nature and structure of aluminum surface sites grafted on silica from a combination of high-field aluminum-27 solid-state NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculations.

The determination of the nature and structure of surface sites after chemical modification of large surface area oxides such as silica is a key point for many applications and challenging from a spectroscopic point of view. This has been, for instance, a long-standing problem for silica reacted with alkylaluminum compounds, a system typically studied as a model for a supported methylaluminoxane and aluminum cocatalyst. While (27)Al solid-state NMR spectroscopy would be a method of choice, it has been difficult to apply this technique because of large quadrupolar broadenings. Here, from a combined use of the highest stable field NMR instruments (17.6, 20.0, and 23.5 T) and ultrafast magic angle spinning (>60 kHz), high-quality spectra were obtained, allowing isotropic chemical shifts, quadrupolar couplings, and asymmetric parameters to be extracted. Combined with first-principles calculations, these NMR signatures were then assigned to actual structures of surface aluminum sites. For silica (here SBA-15) reacted with triethylaluminum, the surface sites are in fact mainly dinuclear Al species, grafted on the silica surface via either two terminal or two bridging siloxy ligands. Tetrahedral sites, resulting from the incorporation of Al inside the silica matrix, are also seen as minor species. No evidence for putative tri-coordinated Al atoms has been found.

Accelerating VASP electronic structure calculations using graphic processing units.

We present a way to improve the performance of the electronic structure Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package (VASP) program. We show that high-performance computers equipped with graphics processing units (GPUs) as accelerators may reduce drastically the computation time when offloading these sections to the graphic chips. The procedure consists of (i) profiling the performance of the code to isolate the time-consuming parts, (ii) rewriting these so that the algorithms become better-suited for the chosen graphic accelerator, and (iii) optimizing memory traffic between the host computer and the GPU accelerator. We chose to accelerate VASP with NVIDIA GPU using CUDA. We compare the GPU and original versions of VASP by evaluating the Davidson and RMM-DIIS algorithms on chemical systems of up to 1100 atoms. In these tests, the total time is reduced by a factor between 3 and 8 when running on n (CPU core + GPU) compared to n CPU cores only, without any accuracy loss.

The initial step of silicate versus aluminosilicate formation in zeolite synthesis: a reaction mechanism in water with a tetrapropylammonium template.

The initial step for silicate and aluminosilicate condensation is studied in water in the presence of a realistic tetrapropylammonium template under basic conditions. The model corresponds to the synthesis conditions of ZSM5. The free energy profile for the dimer formation ((OH)(3)Si-O-Si-(OH)(2)O(-) or [(OH)(3)Al-O-Si-(OH)(3)](-)) is calculated with ab initio molecular dynamics and thermodynamic integration. The Si-O-Si dimer formation occurs in a two-step manner with an overall free energy barrier of 75 kJ mol(-1). The first step is associated with the Si-O bond formation and results in an intermediate with a five-coordinated Si, and the second one concerns the removal of the water molecule. The template is displaced away from the Si centres upon dimer formation, and a shell of water molecules is inserted between the silicate and the template. The main effect of the template is to slow down the backward hydrolysis reaction with respect to the condensation one. The Al-O-Si dimer formation first requires the formation of a metastable precursor state by proton transfer from Si(OH)(4) to Al(OH)(4)(-) mediated by a solvent molecule. It then proceeds through a single step with an overall barrier of 70 kJ mol(-1). The model with water molecules explicitly included is then compared to a simple calculation using an implicit continuum model for the solvent. The results underline the importance of an explicit and dynamical treatment of the water solvent, which plays a key role in assisting the reaction.

Computational screening methodology identifies effective solvents for CO2 capture.

Carbon capture and storage technologies are projected to increasingly contribute to cleaner energy transitions by significantly reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-driven power and industrial plants. The industry standard technology for CO2 capture is chemical absorption with aqueous alkanolamines, which are often being mixed with an activator, piperazine, to increase the overall CO2 absorption rate. Inefficiency of the process due to the parasitic energy required for thermal regeneration of the solvent drives the search for new tertiary amines with better kinetics. Improving the efficiency of experimental screening using computational tools is challenging due to the complex nature of chemical absorption. We have developed a novel computational approach that combines kinetic experiments, molecular simulations and machine learning for the in silico screening of hundreds of prospective candidates and identify a class of tertiary amines that absorbs CO2 faster than a typical commercial solvent when mixed with piperazine, which was confirmed experimentally.

Polyoxometalate grafting onto silica: stability diagrams of H3PMo12O40 on {001}, {101}, and {111} ß-cristobalite surfaces analyzed by DFT.

The process of grafting H(3)PMo(12)O(40) onto silica surfaces is studied using periodic density functional theory methods. For surfaces with a high hydroxyl coverage, the hydroxyl groups are consumed by the polyoxometalate protons, resulting in water formation and the creation of a covalent bond between the polyoxometalate and the surface, and mostly no remaining acidic proton on the polyoxometalate. When the surfaces are partially dehydroxylated and more hydrophobic, after temperature pretreatment, less covalent and hydrogen bonds are formed and the polyoxometalate tends to retain surface hydroxyl groups, while at least one acidic proton remains. Hence the hydroxylation of the surface has a great impact on the chemical properties of the grafted polyoxometalate. In return, the polyoxometalate species affects the compared stability of the partially hydroxylated silica surfaces in comparison with the bare silica case.

Reconstruction and stability of ß-cristobalite 001, 101, and 111 surfaces during dehydroxylation.

We analysed the dehydroxylation of 001, 101, and 111 ß-cristobalite surfaces using the periodic density functional theory method and established the OH density stability diagrams of these surfaces as a function of temperature and water partial pressure. Our calculations suggest that important surface reconstructions, involving SiO(2) unit migrations, are required to reach the experimentally measured values for hydroxyl coverage. Our thermochemical data, i.e., 3.7-5.2 OH nm(-2) in standard conditions and 1.4-2.6 OH nm(-2) at P = 10(-10) atm and T = 800 K, agree with the experimental values for amorphous silica and explain the trends observed, although some topological differences obviously exist between our periodic models and amorphous silica surfaces.

Quantum chemical modeling of zeolite-catalyzed methylation reactions: toward chemical accuracy for barriers.

The methylation of ethene, propene, and t-2-butene by methanol over the acidic microporous H-ZSM-5 catalyst has been investigated by a range of computational methods. Density functional theory (DFT) with periodic boundary conditions (PBE functional) fails to describe the experimentally determined decrease of apparent energy barriers with the alkene size due to inadequate description of dispersion forces. Adding a damped dispersion term expressed as a parametrized sum over atom pair C(6) contributions leads to uniformly underestimated barriers due to self-interaction errors. A hybrid MP2:DFT scheme is presented that combines MP2 energy calculations on a series of cluster models of increasing size with periodic DFT calculations, which allows extrapolation to the periodic MP2 limit. Additionally, errors caused by the use of finite basis sets, contributions of higher order correlation effects, zero-point vibrational energy, and thermal contributions to the enthalpy were evaluated and added to the "periodic" MP2 estimate. This multistep approach leads to enthalpy barriers at 623 K of 104, 77, and 48 kJ/mol for ethene, propene, and t-2-butene, respectively, which deviate from the experimentally measured values by 0, +13, and +8 kJ/mol. Hence, enthalpy barriers can be calculated with near chemical accuracy, which constitutes significant progress in the quantum chemical modeling of reactions in heterogeneous catalysis in general and microporous zeolites in particular.

Oxidative dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons by V3O7(+) compared to other vanadium oxide species.

The oxidative dehydrogenation of propane and but-1-ene by V(3)O(7)(+) is examined using density functional theory. The mechanisms presented share crucial elementary steps with selective oxidation of C-H bonds by different transition metal oxide systems ranging from gas phase species to active sites of enzymes. The more favorable interaction between the olefin and the positively charged vanadium oxide cluster has a significant impact on the reaction mechanisms. With but-1-ene a [2 + 2] addition of the C-H bond onto the V=O site is most favorable, whereas for propane the initial step is H abstraction by the V=O bond. Comparison is made with other gas phase species (VO(2)(+) and V(4)O(10)) and with models for vanadium oxide supported on silica.

Mechanisms of the water-gas-shift reaction by iron pentacarbonyl in the gas phase.

We analyzed the mechanisms of the water-gas-shift reaction catalyzed by Fe(CO) 5/OH (-) in the gas phase using DFT methods. The systematic analysis of the accessible reaction mechanisms and the consideration of the Gibbs free energies allows for different reaction routes than previously suggested. In the dominant catalytic cycle, the hydride [FeH(CO) 4]- is the important intermediate. Associative reaction mechanisms are not favorable under moderate and low pressures. At high pressure, a side reaction takes over and prevents the conversion of H 2O and CO to H 2 and CO 2 and leads to the formation of HCOOH.

Triisobutylaluminum: bulkier and yet more reactive towards silica surfaces than triethyl or trimethylaluminum.

Triisobutylaluminum reacts with silica yielding three different Al sites according to high-field aluminum-27 NMR and first principle calculations: a quadruply grafted dimeric surface species and two incorporated Al(O)x species (x = 4 or 5). This result is in stark contrast to the bis-grafted species that forms during Et3Al silica grafting. Thus the isobutyl ligands, which render R3Al monomeric, lead to greater reactivity towards the silica surface.

Protonation of water clusters in the cavities of acidic zeolites: (H2O)n.H-chabazite, n = 1-4.

Proton forms of zeolite chabazite (H-SSZ-13) loaded with 1 to 4 water molecules per acid site are examined by density functional theory with periodic boundary conditions. Equilibrium structures are determined by localizing minima on the potential energy surface and harmonic vibrational frequencies are calculated. Average structures, proton dynamics and anharmonic spectra at finite temperature (350 K) are determined by molecular dynamics (MD). The protonation state is found to depend on the number of water molecules per acid site (loading) following the trend of increasing proton affinity with increasing cluster size. Single water molecules are not protonated, the protonated water dimer is the most stable equilibrium structure with the PBE functional, but not with BLYP. MD shows that even with PBE, the protonated water dimer is not stable at finite temperature. The protonated water trimer may be formed as a short-lived species, but the protonated water tetramer is the smallest stable protonated cluster. For the same global loading (2 : 1), a heterogeneous distribution of adsorbed water molecules over the cells is more stable than a homogeneous one (1 : 1/3 : 1 vs. 2 : 1/2 : 1 for a double cell), i.e. non-protonated and protonated water clusters may exist simultaneously in polyhydrated H-SSZ13. Adsorption energies (0 K) per water molecule decrease from 71 to 51 kJ mol(-1) for n = 1 to n = 4.