Effects of H-bond asymmetry on the electronic properties of liquid water – An AIMD analysis

Abstract

The effects of an asymmetric environment on the electronic properties of a water molecule in liquid water are in focus in this paper and were analysed from ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of liquid water at 300 and 350 K with the BLYP-D3 functional. We make the following observations. (1) The electronic DOS and the net molecular charge are more affected by the asymmetry of the water molecule's H-bond surroundings than by the number of H-bonded neighbours. The reverse is true for the dipole moment. (2) For all three properties, a 3-coordinated water molecule is more perturbed by accepting two H-bonds and donating one than by donating two and accepting one. (3) This order is not maintained in the calculated XES spectrum, which is less straightforward to interpret in terms of structure-property relationships than the DOS spectrum.