Force field study of catechol dimers and catechol-(H2O)n clusters

Abstract

Force field parameters were developed for catechol and used to produce optimized structures of catechol dimers and catechol-(H2O)n clusters. The force field optimized structures for the catechol dimer and catechol-(H2O)n (with n = 1 and 2) clusters are benchmarked against quantum chemistry calculations at the B3LYP and w97XD levels of theory; with the quantum chemistry calculations taking into account basis set superposition error. The force field predicts, in agreement with B3LYP and w97XD reasonable structures and relative binding energies for two dimer structures and six catechol-(H2O)n clusters (with n = 1, 2). The developed forcefield parameters are then used to conduct molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for catechol-(H2O)15 cluster to highlight the effect of increased coordination number on the H-bond network around catechol with potential impact on the reactivity of catechol towards ozone in wet conditions. The result of MD simulations suggests that water molecules form a cage of H-bonds network around the hydroxyl groups of catechol, thereby blocking the active sites on catechol.