Geometric isotope effects on small chloride ion water clusters with path integral molecular dynamics simulations

The geometric isotope effects on the structures of hydrated chloride ionic hydrogen bonded clusters are explored by carrying out path integral molecular dynamics simulations. First, an outer shell coordinate is selected to display the rearrangement of single and multi hydration shell cluster structures. Next, to show the competition of intramolecular and intermolecular nuclear quantum effects, the intramolecular OH* stretching and intermolecular ion-water wagging motions are studied for single and multi shell structures, respectively. The results indicate that the intermolecular nuclear quantum effects stabilize the ionic hydrogen bonds in single shell structures, while they are destabilized through the competition with intramolecular nuclear quantum effects in multi shell structures. In addition, the correlations between ion-water stretching motion and other cluster vibrational coordinates are discussed. The results indicate that the intermolecular nuclear quantum effects on the cluster structures are strongly related to the cooperation of the water-water hydrogen bond interactions. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.