Clusters of solvated ferrous ion in water–ammonia mixture: Structures and noncovalent interactions

Abstract

The behavior of metal ions is commonly studied in pure solvent although, in our daily life, these metals are involved in mixtures of solvents. In the present study, we investigated structures, relative stabilities and temperature dependance of solvated ferrous ion in water–ammonia mixture solvent at 0 K and at various temperatures ranging from 25 K to 400 K. All the calculations are performed at the MN15 level of theory associated with the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set. For deep understanding of binding patterns in solvated ferrous ion in water–ammonia mixture solvent, noncovalent interactions are presented based on the QTAIM analysis using AIMAll. Our results prove that the ferrous ion is more stable when it is solvated by ammonia instead of water. In addition, hydrogen bonds are weakened by the presence of ammonia molecules. The temperature dependence of the different obtained geometries indicates that from $s=6$ ($s$ is the sum of water and ammonia molecules around the ferrous ion), when the number of water molecules is almost equal to that of ammonia, the structures with coordination number 5 are dominant. However, the coordination number is six when there are a maximum water molecules (rich water solution) or maximum ammonia molecules (rich ammonia solution) around the ferrous ion (for $s\ge 6$). The QTAIM analysis shows that there are two coordination bondings and four hydrogen bondings. Furthermore, it is found that the Fe${}^{2+}\cdots$N coordination bondings are stronger than the Fe${}^{2+}\cdots$O confirming that the ferrous ion prefers to be solvated by ammonia instead of water.