The Performance of Density Functionals for Sulfate-Water Clusters
The performance of 24 density functionals, Hartree-Fock, and MP2 is assessed with respect to the energetics of 49 sulfate-water clusters with between three and six water molecules. Included among the density functionals are GGA, meta-GGA, hybrid GGA, hybrid meta-GGA, and double hybrid density functionals, as well as the LDA. Three types of dispersion corrections (VV10, XDM, and -D) are tested in conjunction with these functionals. The functionals are compared using the relative and binding energies of the sulfatewater clusters as the main criteria. It is discovered that a majority of current density functionals are unable to simultaneously capture the physics necessary to describe both the relative and binding energies of the anionic solvation clusters. The only density functionals that perform acceptably with respect to both measures are XYG3 and XYGJOS, primarily due to their balanced treatment of exchange and correlation. On the other hand, density functionals with exact exchange that lack nonlocal correlation tend to perform well only for the relative energies. However, there is evidence that hybrid density functionals that provide a more comprehensive treatment of local correlation through their dependence on the kinetic energy density and their ability to treat the inhomogeneities in the present system can partially resolve this issue. While dispersion correction functionals cannot replace the accuracy provided by MP2 correlation, it is shown that the proper combination of a hybrid GGA functional with a dispersion correction functional can lead to drastic improvements in the binding energies of the parent functional, while preserving its performance with respect to the relative energies.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab. (EMSL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1072869
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-91097; 43893; KC0301020
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 9(3):1368-1380, Journal Name: Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, 9(3):1368-1380
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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