Multiphase Ozonolysis of Oleic Acid-Based Lipids: Quantitation of Major Products and Kinetic Multilayer Modeling.

Commonly found in atmospheric aerosols, cooking oils, and human sebum, unsaturated lipids rapidly decay upon exposure to ozone, following the Criegee mechanism. Here, the gas-surface ozonolysis of three oleic acid-based compounds was studied in a reactor and indoors. Under dry conditions, quantitative product analyses by 1H NMR indicate up to 79% molar yield of stable secondary ozonides (SOZs) in oxidized triolein and methyl oleate coatings. Elevated relative humidity (RH) significantly suppresses the SOZ yields, enhancing the formation of condensed-phase aldehydes and volatile C9 products. Along with kinetic parameters informed by molecular dynamics simulations, these results were used as constraints in a kinetic multilayer model (KM-GAP) simulating triolein ozonolysis. Covering a wide range of coating thicknesses and ozone levels, the model predicts a much faster decay near the gas-lipid interface compared to the bulk. Although the dependence of RH on SOZ yields is well predicted, the model overestimates the production of H2O2 and aldehydes. With negligible dependence on RH, the product composition for oxidized oleic acid is substantially affected by a competitive reaction between Criegee intermediates (CIs) and carboxylic acids. The resulting α-acyloxyalkyl hydroperoxides (α-AAHPs) have much higher molar yields (29-38%) than SOZs (12-16%). Overall, the ozone-lipid chemistry could affect the indoor environment through "crust" accumulation on surfaces and volatile organic compound (VOC) emission. In the atmosphere, the peroxide formation and changes in particle hygroscopicity may have effects on climate. The related health impacts are also discussed.

The Ionic Product of Water in the Eye of the Quantum Cluster Equilibrium.

The theoretical description of water properties continues to be a challenge. Using quantum cluster equilibrium (QCE) theory, we combine state-of-the-art quantum chemistry and statistical thermodynamic methods with the almost historical Clausius-Clapeyron relation to study water self-dissociation and the thermodynamics of vaporization. We pay particular attention to the treatment of internal rotations and their impact on the investigated properties by employing the modified rigid-rotor-harmonic-oscillator (mRRHO) approach. We also study a novel QCE parameter-optimization procedure. Both the ionic product and the vaporization enthalpy yield an astonishing agreement with experimental reference data. A significant influence of the mRRHO approach is observed for cluster populations and, consequently, for the ionic product. Thermodynamic properties are less affected by the treatment of these low-frequency modes.

Anisotropic structure and dynamics of water under static electric fields.

We study the structure and dynamics of water subject to a range of static external electric fields, using molecular dynamics simulations. In particular, we monitor the changes in hydrogen bond kinetics, reorientation dynamics, and translational motions of water molecules. We find that water molecules translate and rotate slower in electric fields because the tendency to reinstate the aligned orientation reduces the probability of finding a new hydrogen bond partner and hence increases the probability of reforming already ruptured bonds. Furthermore, dipolar alignment of water molecules with the field results in structural and dynamic anisotropies even though the angularly averaged metrics indicate only minor structural changes. Through comparison of selected nonpolarizable and polarizable water models, we find that the electric field effects are stronger in polarizable water models, where field-enhanced dipole moments and thus more stable hydrogen bonds lead to slower switching of hydrogen bond partners and reduced translational mobility, compared to a nonpolarizable water model.

Effect of an external electric field on the dynamics and intramolecular structures of ions in an ionic liquid.

Simulations of the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide in an external electric field have been performed using a Drude particle polarizable force field. The structure of the ions has been analyzed, with close attention paid to the configurations of the ions. The "charge arm" concept is used to explain certain changes of these configurations that would be difficult to rationalize otherwise, e.g., trans → cis isomerization of the bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide anion and extension of the alkyl chain of the cation. It has also been shown that the ions orient themselves so that their charge arms align with and stretch out along the field, and these effects occur at lower external electric field strengths than cause a change in the inherent diffusion of the ions. The dynamics of the system parallel and perpendicular to the field were analyzed, and it was found that the applied field affected the diffusion normal to the field. This is explained as a secondary effect of a change in the ion cage formed by the surrounding counterions of a given ion in the ionic liquid. The breakdown of the ion cages was rationalized by correlating changes to the inherent diffusion of the ions with other changes to the diffusion and bulk structure of the liquid, as well as considering the average forces on the ions compared to the force the ions would be expected to experience in an electric field. Parallel to the field, a drift was observed at every electric field studied. In electric fields with no changes to the ion cage structure, the relationship between the drift and electric field was found to be linear, becoming nonlinear as the ion cage structure breaks down.

Predicting Mole-Fraction-Dependent Dissociation for Weak Acids.

We demonstrate for formic and acetic acid dissolved in water as examples that the binary quantum cluster equilibrium (bQCE) approach can predict acid strengths over the whole range of acid concentrations. The acid strength increases in a complex rather than a simple way with increasing mole fraction of the acid from 0 to 0.7, reflecting the complex interplay between the dissociated ions or conjugate bases available as compared to the acid and water molecules. Furthermore, our calculated ion concentrations meet the experimental maximum of the conductivity with excellent agreement for acetic acid and satisfactorily for the formic acid/water mixture. As only a limited number of simple quantum-chemical calculations are required for the prediction, bQCE is clearly a valuable approach to access these quantities also in non-aqueous solutions. It is a highly valuable asset for predicting ionization processes in highly concentrated solutions, which are relevant for biological and chemical systems, as well as technological processes.

Structure and lifetimes in ionic liquids and their mixtures.

With the aid of molecular dynamics simulations, we study the structure and dynamics of different ionic liquid systems, with focus on hydrogen bond, ion pair and ion cage formation. To do so, we report radial distribution functions, their number integrals, and various time-correlation functions, from which we extract well-defined lifetimes by means of the reactive flux formalism. We explore the influence of polarizable force fields vs. non-polarizable ones with downscaled charges (±0.8) for the example of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide. Furthermore, we use 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate to investigate the impact of temperature and mixing with water as well as with the chloride ionic liquid. Smaller coordination numbers, larger distances, and tremendously accelerated dynamics are observed when the polarizable force field is applied. The same trends are found with increasing temperature. Adding water decreases the ion-ion coordination numbers whereas the water-ion and water-water coordination is enhanced. A domain analysis reveals that the nonpolar parts of the ions are dispersed and when more water is added the water clusters increase in size. The dynamics accelerate in general upon addition of water. In the ionic liquid mixture, the coordination number around the cation changes between the two anions, but the number integrals of the cation around the anions remain constant and the dynamics slow down with increasing content of the chloride ionic liquid.

Thermodynamics and proton activities of protic ionic liquids with quantum cluster equilibrium theory.

We applied the binary Quantum Cluster Equilibrium (bQCE) method to a number of alkylammonium-based protic ionic liquids in order to predict boiling points, vaporization enthalpies, and proton activities. The theory combines statistical thermodynamics of van-der-Waals-type clusters with ab initio quantum chemistry and yields the partition functions (and associated thermodynamic potentials) of binary mixtures over a wide range of thermodynamic phase points. Unlike conventional cluster approaches that are limited to the prediction of thermodynamic properties, dissociation reactions can be effortlessly included into the bQCE formalism, giving access to ionicities, as well. The method is open to quantum chemical methods at any level of theory, but combination with low-cost composite density functional theory methods and the proposed systematic approach to generate cluster sets provides a computationally inexpensive and mostly parameter-free way to predict such properties at good-to-excellent accuracy. Boiling points can be predicted within an accuracy of 50 K, reaching excellent accuracy for ethylammonium nitrate. Vaporization enthalpies are predicted within an accuracy of 20 kJ mol-1 and can be systematically interpreted on a molecular level. We present the first theoretical approach to predict proton activities in protic ionic liquids, with results fitting well into the experimentally observed correlation. Furthermore, enthalpies of vaporization were measured experimentally for some alkylammonium nitrates and an excellent linear correlation with vaporization enthalpies of their respective parent amines is observed.

Predicting miscibility of binary liquids from small cluster QCE calculations.

The quantum cluster equilibrium method is applied to model binary systems of molecular solvents. We minimize the computational effort as well as the experimental input and present the results obtained for the completely miscible acetonitrile/acetone, benzene/acetone, and water/acetone systems, as well as for the hardly miscible water/benzene system. Only clusters of sizes up to n = 3 are applied and these are optimized employing the low-cost functional PBEh-3c. The thermodynamic functions of the pure liquids are in reasonable agreement with experiments. For both non-water containing binary systems, the Gibbs energy of mixing can be reproduced with an accuracy of ≈0.25 kJ/mol. Water containing systems are not sufficiently described by small clusters. The empirical mean-field parameter amf and exclusion volume scaling parameter bxv which depend on the experimental input are approximated by linear interpolation between their neat liquids' reference values. This makes the approach independent from the experimental data of the binary system. Despite the roughness of the approximation as well as the small size of the cluster sets, the approach is able to correctly predict the mixing behavior of all acetone systems. The benzene/water system is correctly predicted to be non-miscible at most mole fractions. A small range at high benzene concentrations (x> 0.8) is falsely predicted to be miscible.

Anharmonic effects in the quantum cluster equilibrium method.

The well-established quantum cluster equilibrium (QCE) model provides a statistical thermodynamic framework to apply high-level ab initio calculations of finite cluster structures to macroscopic liquid phases using the partition function. So far, the harmonic approximation has been applied throughout the calculations. In this article, we apply an important correction in the evaluation of the one-particle partition function and account for anharmonicity. Therefore, we implemented an analytical approximation to the Morse partition function and the derivatives of its logarithm with respect to temperature, which are required for the evaluation of thermodynamic quantities. This anharmonic QCE approach has been applied to liquid hydrogen chloride and cluster distributions, and the molar volume, the volumetric thermal expansion coefficient, and the isobaric heat capacity have been calculated. An improved description for all properties is observed if anharmonic effects are considered.

Quantum cluster equilibrium model of N-methylformamide-water binary mixtures.

The established quantum cluster equilibrium (QCE) approach is refined and applied to N-methylformamide (NMF) and its aqueous solution. The QCE method is split into two iterative cycles: one which converges to the liquid phase solution of the QCE equations and another which yields the gas phase. By comparing Gibbs energies, the thermodynamically stable phase at a given temperature and pressure is then chosen. The new methodology avoids metastable solutions and allows a different treatment of the mean-field interactions within the gas and liquid phases. These changes are of crucial importance for the treatment of binary mixtures. For the first time in a QCE study, the cis-trans-isomerism of a species (NMF) is explicitly considered. Cluster geometries and frequencies are calculated using density functional theory (DFT) and complementary coupled cluster single point energies are used to benchmark the DFT results. Independent of the selected quantum-chemical method, a large set of clusters is required for an accurate thermodynamic description of the binary mixture. The liquid phase of neat NMF is found to be dominated by the cyclic trans-NMF pentamer, which can be interpreted as a linear trimer that is stabilized by explicit solvation of two further NMF molecules. This cluster reflects the known hydrogen bond network preferences of neat NMF.

Femtosecond 2DIR spectroscopy of the nitrile stretching vibration of thiocyanate anions in liquid-to-supercritical heavy water. Spectral diffusion and libration-induced hydrogen-bond dynamics.

Femtosecond two-dimensional infrared (2DIR) spectroscopy was carried out to study the dynamics of vibrational spectral diffusion of the nitrile stretching vibration of thiocyanate anions (S-C≡N(-)) dissolved in liquid-to-supercritical heavy water (D2O). The 2DIR line shapes were used to extract through a nodal slope analysis quantitative information about the correlation function for temporal fluctuations of the CN-stretching frequency. The inverse nodal slope could be fitted phenomenologically by a simple double-exponential decay whose predominant component had a time constant ranging between 300 fs and 1 ps depending on the temperature. The temperature dependence is interpreted in terms of solvent structural fluctuations that are driven by the librational motions of the D2O molecules located in the first solvation shell of the anion. Complementary molecular dynamics simulations of the SCN(-)/D2O system indicate that the breaking and making of hydrogen-bonds between the terminal N-atom of the anion and the D2O molecules are induced by the same solvent-shell librational degrees of freedom that drive the vibrational line broadening dynamics seen in the 2DIR experiment.

A one-parameter quantum cluster equilibrium approach.

The established quantum cluster equilibrium approach is further developed in this work. The equations are reformulated to result in a one-parameter expression, i.e., with one of two empirical parameters eliminated. Instead of a parametrized constant mean field interaction we present two further approaches using temperature dependent mean field functions. The suggested functions are assessed by means of two test systems, namely hydrogen fluoride and water which are investigated concerning their liquid phase properties as well as the phenomenon of evaporation. The obtained thermodynamic data are compared with each other for the different mean field functions including the conventional approach as well as to experimental data.

Importance of structural motifs in liquid hydrogen fluoride.

The investigation of liquid phases by means of accurate electronic structure methods is a demanding task due to the high computational effort. We applied second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation theory and high-level quantum chemical calculations using the coupled-cluster method with single, double and perturbative triple excitations in combination with Dunnings correlation-consistent basis sets up to quintuple ζ quality. Based on these calculations, we extrapolated the correlation energy to the basis set limit in order to improve the results even further. For comparison to the correlated electronic structure methods, density functional calculations employing different functionals are presented as well. The investigated species are a cyclic pentamer as well as a set of branched structures. The quantum cluster equilibrium method is employed for the investigation of the liquid-phase structure of hydrogen fluoride. The pentamer is found to be present to a high extent and in the case of the MP2/QZVP data, its presence improves the results significantly. Accounting for branched structures slightly improves results, so that they are found to be present but not to dominate in liquid hydrogen fluoride. Concerning both the interaction energy and the result of the quantum cluster equilibrium calculation the basis set has a major influence, whereas the difference between Møller-Plesset perturbation theory and coupled-cluster calculations is less pronounced.

Binary systems from quantum cluster equilibrium theory.

An extension of the quantum cluster equilibrium theory to treat binary mixtures is introduced in this work. The necessary equations are derived and a possible implementation is presented. In addition an alternative sampling procedure using widely available experimental data for the quantum cluster equilibrium approach is suggested and tested. An illustrative example, namely, the binary mixture of water and dimethyl sulfoxide, is given to demonstrate the new approach. A basic cluster set is introduced containing the relevant cluster motifs. The populations computed by the quantum cluster equilibrium approach are compared to the experimental data. Furthermore, the excess Gibbs free energy is computed and compared to experiments as well.

Molecular Orientation at the Squalene/Air Interface from Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy and Atomistic Modeling.

Human skin oils are significant scavengers of atmospheric oxidants in occupied indoor environments, and squalene is a major ozone-active constituent. Here, we present a combined spectroscopic and atomistic modeling approach to elucidate the conformational and orientational preferences of squalene at the air/oil interface and their implications for reactions with ozone. We find that squalene chains have a tendency to align with the surface normal, resulting in different concentrations of the various types of its double bonds and thus different reactivities. We also observe the presence of water at the surface of this hydrophobic compound. Both findings have possible implications for the design and outcomes of kinetic models describing this important aspect of indoor air chemistry.

Multiscale Modeling of Human Skin Oil-Induced Indoor Air Chemistry: Combining Kinetic Models and Molecular Dynamics.

We performed classical molecular dynamics simulations to quantify and understand the nonreactive, dermal uptake of volatile organic compounds formed during the ozonolysis of human skin oils. Our results include surface accommodation coefficients, partitioning constants, bulk diffusivities, and desorption lifetimes. These parameters were used to improve and to constrain the kinetic multilayer model of the surface and bulk chemistry of skin (KM-SUB-Skin). By comparing common outputs (bulk accommodation coefficients), we cross-validate the two approaches and, thus, increase the level of trust in their predictions relevant to indoor air chemistry.

Modelling consortium for chemistry of indoor environments (MOCCIE): integrating chemical processes from molecular to room scales.

We report on the development of a modelling consortium for chemistry in indoor environments that connects models over a range of spatial and temporal scales, from molecular to room scales and from sub-nanosecond to days, respectively. Our modeling approaches include molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, kinetic process modeling, gas-phase chemistry modeling, organic aerosol modeling, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. These models are applied to investigate ozone reactions with skin and clothing, oxidation of volatile organic compounds and formation of secondary organic aerosols, and mass transport and partitioning of indoor species to surfaces. MD simulations provide molecular pictures of limonene adsorption on SiO2 and ozone interactions with the skin lipid squalene, providing kinetic parameters such as surface accommodation coefficient, desorption lifetime, and bulk diffusivity. These parameters then constrain kinetic process models, which resolve mass transport and chemical reactions in gas and condensed phases for analysis of experimental data. A detailed indoor chemical box model is applied to simulate α-pinene ozonolysis with improved representation of gas-particle partitioning. Application of 2D-volatility basis set reveals that OH-induced aging sometimes drives increases in indoor organic aerosol concentrations, due to organic mass functionalization and enhanced partitioning. CFD simulations show that concentrations of ozone and primary product change near the human surface rapidly, indicating non-uniform spatial distributions from the occupant surface to ambient air, while secondary ozone product is relatively well-mixed throughout the room. This development establishes a framework to integrate different modeling tools and experimental measurements, opening up an avenue for development of comprehensive and integrated models with representations of various chemistry in indoor environments.

Predicting the Ionic Product of Water.

We present a first-principles calculation and mechanistic characterization of the ion product of liquid water (K W ), based on Quantum Cluster Equilibrium (QCE) theory with a variety of ab initio and density functional methods. The QCE method is based on T-dependent Boltzmann weighting of different-sized clusters and consequently enables the observation of thermodynamically less favored and therefore low populated species such as hydronium and hydroxide ions in water. We find that common quantum chemical methods achieve semi-quantitative accuracy in predicting K W and its T-dependence. Dominant ion-pair water clusters of the QCE equilibrium distribution are found to exhibit stable 2-coordinate buttress-type motifs, all with maximally Grotthus-ordered H-bond patterns that successfully prevent recombination of hydronium and hydroxide ions at 3-coordinate bridgehead sites. We employ standard quantum chemistry techniques to describe kinetic and mechanistic aspects of ion-pair formation, and we obtain NBO-based bonding indices to characterize other electronic, structural, spectroscopic, and reactive properties of cluster-mediated ionic dissociation.

Coupled Cluster in Condensed Phase. Part II: Liquid Hydrogen Fluoride from Quantum Cluster Equilibrium Theory.

Treating the bulk phase with high-level ab initio methods, such as coupled cluster, is a nontrivial task because of the computational costs of these electronic structure methods. In this part of our hydrogen fluoride study we make use of the quantum cluster equilibrium method, which employs electronic structure input of small clusters and combines it with simple statistical mechanics in order to describe condensed phase phenomena. If no parameter adjustment is applied, then the lower quantum chemical methods, such as density functional theory in conjunction with the generalized gradient approximation, provide wrong results in accordance with the description of the strength of the interaction in the clusters. While density functional theory describes the liquid phase too dense due to overbinding of the clusters, the coupled cluster method and the perturbation theory at the complete basis set limit agree well with experimental observations. If we allow the two parameters in the quantum cluster equilibrium method to vary, then these are able to compensate the overbinding, thereby leading to very good agreement with experiment. Correlated methods in combination with small basis sets giving rise to too weakly bound clusters cannot reach this accuracy even if the parameters are flexible. Only at the complete basis set limit, the performance of the correlated methods is again excellent.