Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Determining Partial Atomic Charges for Liquid Water: Assessing Electronic Structure and Charge Models

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation

Partial atomic charges provide an intuitive and efficient way to describe the charge distribution and the resulting intermolecular electrostatic interactions in liquid water. Many charge models exist and it is unclear which model provides the best assignment of partial atomic charges in response to the local molecular environment. In this work, we systematically scrutinize various electronic structure methods and charge models (Mulliken, natural population analysis, CHelpG, RESP, Hirshfeld, Iterative Hirshfeld, and Bader) by evaluating their performance in predicting the dipole moments of isolated water, water clusters, and liquid water as well as charge transfer in the water dimer and liquid water. Although none of the seven charge models is capable of fully capturing the dipole moment increase from isolated water (1.85 D) to liquid water (about 2.9 D), the Iterative Hirshfeld method performs best for liquid water, reproducing its experimental average molecular dipole moment, yielding a reasonable amount of intermolecular charge transfer, and showing modest sensitivity to the local water environment. The performance of the charge model is dependent on the choice of the density functional and the quantum treatment of the environment. The computed molecular dipole moment of water generally increases with the percentage of the exact Hartree–Fock exchange in the functional, whereas the amount of charge transfer between molecules decreases. For liquid water, including two full solvation shells of surrounding water molecules (within about 5.5 Å of the central water) in the quantum chemical calculation converges the charges of the central water molecule. Furthermore, our final pragmatic quantum chemical charge-assigning protocol for liquid water is the Iterative Hirshfeld method with M06-HF/aug-cc-pVDZ and a quantum region cutoff radius of 5.5 Å.

Research Organization:
Univ. of California, Merced, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Univ. of California Merced
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0019053; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1773837
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, Journal Name: Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 17; ISSN 1549-9618
Publisher:
American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (135)

Charges fit to electrostatic potentials. II. Can atomic charges be unambiguously fit to electrostatic potentials? journal February 1996
Comparison of methods for deriving atomic charges from the electrostatic potential and moments journal March 1998
Generation of OPLS-like charges from molecular electrostatic potential using restraints journal April 1999
Electron Donation in the Water-Water Hydrogen Bond journal December 2008
A Quantitative View of Charge Transfer in the Hydrogen Bond: The Water Dimer Case journal July 2014
A point-charge force field for molecular mechanics simulations of proteins based on condensed-phase quantum mechanical calculations journal October 2003
Voronoi deformation density (VDD) charges: Assessment of the Mulliken, Bader, Hirshfeld, Weinhold, and VDD methods for charge analysis journal January 2003
Development and testing of a general amber force field journal January 2004
Charge distribution in the water molecule?A comparison of methods journal January 2004
Energy partitioning scheme based on self-consistent method for subsystems: Populational space approach journal November 2010
A self-consistent Hirshfeld method for the atom in the molecule based on minimization of information loss journal February 2011
Multiwfn: A multifunctional wavefunction analyzer journal December 2011
An approach to computing electrostatic charges for molecules journal April 1984
Determining atom-centered monopoles from molecular electrostatic potentials. The need for high sampling density in formamide conformational analysis journal April 1990
Atomic charges derived from semiempirical methods journal May 1990
Comparison of atomic charges derived via different procedures journal December 1993
A model of atoms in molecules based on potential acting on one electron in a molecule: I. Partition and atomic charges obtained from ab initio calculations journal February 2018
An overview of the Amber biomolecular simulation package: Amber biomolecular simulation package
  • Salomon-Ferrer, Romelia; Case, David A.; Walker, Ross C.
  • Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Molecular Science, Vol. 3, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1002/wcms.1121
journal September 2012
Advanced models for water simulations journal September 2017
Bonded-atom fragments for describing molecular charge densities journal January 1977
A test of the Hirshfeld definition of atomic charges and moments journal January 1992
The M06 suite of density functionals for main group thermochemistry, thermochemical kinetics, noncovalent interactions, excited states, and transition elements: two new functionals and systematic testing of four M06-class functionals and 12 other functionals journal July 2007
On the problem of defining the charge on an atom in a molecule journal January 1968
GROMACS: A message-passing parallel molecular dynamics implementation journal September 1995
A precise solution of the rotation bending Schrödinger equation for a triatomic molecule with application to the water molecule journal January 1979
Temperature dependence of the optical constants for liquid H2O and D2O in the far IR region journal May 1995
The vibrational spectrum of the water dimer: Comparison between anharmonic ab initio calculations and neon matrix infrared data between 14,000 and 90cm−1 journal July 2011
Dynamical behavior of molecular partial charges implied by the far-infrared spectral profile of liquid water journal August 2018
Effects of H-bond asymmetry on the electronic properties of liquid water – An AIMD analysis journal November 2019
GROMACS: High performance molecular simulations through multi-level parallelism from laptops to supercomputers journal September 2015
The electronic properties of water molecules in water clusters and liquid water journal October 2000
Force Fields for Protein Simulations book January 2003
Atomic charges for molecular dynamics calculations journal July 2000
Calculating and Characterizing the Charge Distributions in Solids journal June 2020
ff14SB: Improving the Accuracy of Protein Side Chain and Backbone Parameters from ff99SB journal July 2015
How Accurate Is Density Functional Theory at Predicting Dipole Moments? An Assessment Using a New Database of 200 Benchmark Values journal March 2018
Effects of Intermolecular Charge Transfer in Liquid Water on Raman Spectra journal October 2016
Atoms in molecules journal January 1985
Delocalization Error and “Functional Tuning” in Kohn–Sham Calculations of Molecular Properties journal June 2014
Intermolecular interactions from a natural bond orbital, donor-acceptor viewpoint journal September 1988
An Extension of the Hirshfeld Method to Open Shell Systems Using Fractional Occupations journal April 2011
Charge Model 5: An Extension of Hirshfeld Population Analysis for the Accurate Description of Molecular Interactions in Gaseous and Condensed Phases
  • Marenich, Aleksandr V.; Jerome, Steven V.; Cramer, Christopher J.
  • Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, Vol. 8, Issue 2, p. 527-541 https://doi.org/10.1021/ct200866d
journal February 2012
Partial Atomic Charges and Screened Charge Models of the Electrostatic Potential journal May 2012
Structure and Dynamics of Liquid Water from ab Initio Molecular Dynamics—Comparison of BLYP, PBE, and revPBE Density Functionals with and without van der Waals Corrections journal March 2012
Hirshfeld-E Partitioning: AIM Charges with an Improved Trade-off between Robustness and Accurate Electrostatics journal April 2013
Cooperative Contributions of the Intermolecular Charge Fluxes and Intramolecular Polarizations in the Far-Infrared Spectral Intensities of Liquid Water journal February 2014
Modeling the Partial Atomic Charges in Inorganometallic Molecules and Solids and Charge Redistribution in Lithium-Ion Cathodes journal November 2014
Fitting Molecular Electrostatic Potentials from Quantum Mechanical Calculations journal March 2007
The Effect of Polarizability for Understanding the Molecular Structure of Aqueous Interfaces journal July 2007
An Anisotropic Polarizable Water Model: Incorporation of All-Atom Polarizabilities into Molecular Mechanics Force Fields journal April 1994
Principal Components of Ionicity journal August 1994
A well-behaved electrostatic potential based method using charge restraints for deriving atomic charges: the RESP model journal October 1993
Network topology in simulated water journal February 1987
The missing term in effective pair potentials journal November 1987
Frequency Shifts in the Hydrogen-Bonded OH Stretch in Halide−Water Clusters. The Importance of Charge Transfer journal July 2000
Effects of Alkali Metal Halide Salts on the Hydrogen Bond Network of Liquid Water journal April 2005
Structure and Dynamics of the Aqueous Liquid−Vapor Interface:  A Comprehensive Particle-Based Simulation Study journal March 2006
Comparative DFT Study of van der Waals Complexes:  Rare-Gas Dimers, Alkaline-Earth Dimers, Zinc Dimer, and Zinc-Rare-Gas Dimers journal April 2006
Density Functional for Spectroscopy:  No Long-Range Self-Interaction Error, Good Performance for Rydberg and Charge-Transfer States, and Better Performance on Average than B3LYP for Ground States journal December 2006
Study of Temperature Effect on Far-Infrared Spectra of Liquid H 2 O and D 2 O by Analytical Theory and Molecular Dynamic Simulations journal June 2007
Intermolecular Electron Density Modulations in Water and Their Effects on the Far-Infrared Spectral Profiles at 6 THz journal May 2011
Benchmark Structures and Binding Energies of Small Water Clusters with Anharmonicity Corrections journal November 2011
Benchmarking Quantum Chemical Methods for the Calculation of Molecular Dipole Moments and Polarizabilities journal May 2014
Dielectric and Terahertz Spectroscopy of Polarizable and Nonpolarizable Water Models: A Comparative Study journal August 2014
Isobaric−Isothermal Molecular Dynamics Simulations Utilizing Density Functional Theory: An Assessment of the Structure and Density of Water at Near-Ambient Conditions journal September 2009
Atomic Charges of the Water Molecule and the Water Dimer journal September 1998
Adiabatic Nuclear and Electronic Sampling Monte Carlo Simulations in the Gibbs Ensemble:  Application to Polarizable Force Fields for Water journal March 2000
Development of Polarizable Water Force Fields for Phase Equilibrium Calculations journal March 2000
Charge Transfer between Water Molecules As the Possible Origin of the Observed Charging at the Surface of Pure Water journal December 2011
Characterizing Charge Transfer at Water Ice Interfaces journal October 2012
Non-bonded force field model with advanced restrained electrostatic potential charges (RESP2) journal April 2020
Calculation of effective atomic-charges from molecular orbital wavefunctions journal January 1969
More reliable partial atomic charges when using diffuse basis sets journal January 2002
Long-range corrected hybrid density functionals with damped atom–atom dispersion corrections journal January 2008
Simulating water with rigid non-polarizable models: a general perspective journal January 2011
The total molecular dipole moment for liquid water journal September 2002
Electric dipole moments of low J states of H 2 O and D 2 O journal September 1973
Development of an improved four-site water model for biomolecular simulations: TIP4P-Ew journal May 2004
Electronic Population Analysis on LCAO–MO Molecular Wave Functions. I journal October 1955
Local hydrogen bonding dynamics and collective reorganization in water: Ultrafast infrared spectroscopy of HOD/D2O journal February 2005
A potential model for the study of ices and amorphous water: TIP4P/Ice journal June 2005
A general purpose model for the condensed phases of water: TIP4P/2005 journal December 2005
Semiempirical hybrid density functional with perturbative second-order correlation journal January 2006
Assessment of a long-range corrected hybrid functional journal December 2006
Critical analysis and extension of the Hirshfeld atoms in molecules journal April 2007
Dynamical properties of liquid water from ab initio molecular dynamics performed in the complete basis set limit journal April 2007
Polarization and charge transfer in the hydration of chloride ions journal January 2010
Polymorphic transitions in single crystals: A new molecular dynamics method journal December 1981
The effects of charge transfer on the properties of liquid water journal May 2011
The structure of water dimer from molecular beam electric resonance spectroscopy journal January 1977
Infrared spectrum of the water dimer in solid nitrogen. I. Assignment and force constant calculations journal May 1977
Comparison of simple potential functions for simulating liquid water journal July 1983
A unified formulation of the constant temperature molecular dynamics methods journal July 1984
Natural population analysis journal July 1985
Dielectric relaxation in water. Computer simulations with the TIP4P potential journal August 1986
The distribution of rings of hydrogen‐bonded molecules in a model of liquid water journal May 1987
High‐resolution near‐infrared spectroscopy of water dimer journal December 1989
Particle mesh Ewald: An N ⋅log( N ) method for Ewald sums in large systems journal June 1993
Density‐functional thermochemistry. III. The role of exact exchange journal April 1993
Dynamical fluctuating charge force fields: Application to liquid water journal October 1994
The intermolecular dynamics of liquid water journal January 1995
Ab initio studies of cyclic water clusters (H 2 O) n , n =1–6. III. Comparison of density functional with MP2 results journal March 1995
A smooth particle mesh Ewald method journal November 1995
The effects of charge transfer on the aqueous solvation of ions journal July 2012
The water hexamer: Three-body interactions, structures, energetics, and OH-stretch spectroscopy at finite temperature journal September 2012
Generalized molecular mechanics including quantum electronic structure variation of polar solvents. II. A molecular dynamics simulation study of water journal February 1998
How intermolecular charge transfer influences the air-water interface journal October 2012
Energy decomposition analysis of intermolecular interactions using a block-localized wave function approach journal April 2000
A five-site model for liquid water and the reproduction of the density anomaly by rigid, nonpolarizable potential functions journal May 2000
Electron distribution in water journal June 2000
Dielectric constant and low-frequency infrared spectra for liquid water and ice Ih within the E3B model journal August 2014
Quantum fluctuations and isotope effects in ab initio descriptions of water journal September 2014
2D-Raman-THz spectroscopy: A sensitive test of polarizable water models journal November 2014
An accurate and efficient computational protocol for obtaining the complete basis set limits of the binding energies of water clusters at the MP2 and CCSD(T) levels of theory: Application to (H 2 O) m , m = 2-6, 8, 11, 16, and 17 journal June 2015
An efficient water force field calibrated against intermolecular THz and Raman spectra journal June 2018
Polarizable molecules in the vibrational spectroscopy of water journal August 2005
Unified description of temperature-dependent hydrogen-bond rearrangements in liquid water journal September 2005
Dissecting the THz spectrum of liquid water from first principles via correlations in time and space journal June 2010
Spatial correlation of dipole fluctuations in liquid water journal May 2007
Advances in molecular quantum chemistry contained in the Q-Chem 4 program package journal September 2014
Temperature and size dependence for Monte Carlo simulations of TIP4P water journal December 1985
A molecular dynamics study of polarizable water journal October 1989
The electrostatic properties of water molecules in condensed phases: an ab initio study journal June 1999
Canonical dynamics: Equilibrium phase-space distributions journal March 1985
Density-functional exchange-energy approximation with correct asymptotic behavior journal September 1988
Development of the Colle-Salvetti correlation-energy formula into a functional of the electron density journal January 1988
Nuclear Quantum Effects in Water journal July 2008
Water Molecule Dipole in the Gas and in the Liquid Phase journal April 1999
Intermolecular Dynamical Charge Fluctuations in Water: A Signature of the H-Bond Network journal October 2005
Dipolar Correlations and the Dielectric Permittivity of Water journal June 2007
Formation of Cyclic Water Hexamer in Liquid Helium: The Smallest Piece of Ice journal January 2000
Atomic Dipole Moment Corrected Hirshfeld Population Method journal February 2012
Far-Infrared Spectrum of Liquid Water* journal January 1966
Measurements of the optical constants of liquid H_2O and D_2O between 6 and 450 cm^−1 journal January 1977
Infrared Intensities of Liquids XX: The Intensity of the OH Stretching Band of Liquid Water Revisited, and the Best Current Values of the Optical Constants of H 2 O(l) at 25°C between 15,000 and 1 cm −1 journal August 1996

Similar Records

Numerical study on the partitioning of the molecular polarizability into fluctuating charge and induced atomic dipole contributions
Journal Article · Wed May 06 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Journal of Physical Chemistry. A, Molecules, Spectroscopy, Kinetics, Environment, and General Theory · OSTI ID:1344918

Polarization and charge transfer in the hydration of chloride ions
Journal Article · Wed Jan 06 23:00:00 EST 2010 · Journal of Chemical Physics · OSTI ID:21559871