The 17O hyperfine interaction in V17O(H217O)52+ and Mn (H217O)62+ determined by high field ENDOR aided by DFT calculations

The O-17 hyperfine interaction of the water ligands and the V=O oxygen in the vanadyl aquo complex and of the water ligands in the Mn2+ aquo complex in a frozen solution were determined by W-band (95 GHz) electron-nuclear double resonance (ENDOR). Orientation selective ENDOR spectra of the vanadyl complex exhibited two distinct signals assigned to the vanadyl oxygen and the water ligands. The assignment of the signals was done based on the orientation of the principal axis system of the hyperfine interaction and through comparison with the hyperfine interaction predicted by DFT calculations. The latter showed good agreement with the experimental values thus providing clear evidence that the vanadyl oxygen is exchangeable. The interaction of the vanadyl oxygen, especially its anisotropic part, was significantly larger than that of the water oxygens due to a relatively large negative spin density on the oxygen p orbitals. The O-17 hyperfine interaction of the water ligand in the Mn2+ complex was found to be similar to that of the water ligand in the vanadyl complex and was in good agreement with earlier single-crystal data. Here, due to the large thermal polarization, it was also possible to determine the absolute sign of the hyperfine coupling by selecting different EPR transitions.