Vibrational Stark Effect Research Articles

Environment- and Conformation-Induced Frequency Shifts of C-D Vibrational Stark Probes in NAD(P)H Cofactors.

NAD(P)H cofactors are found in all forms of life and are essential for electron and hydrogen atom transfer. The linear response of a carbon-deuterium (C-D) vibration based on the vibrational Stark effect can facilitate measurements of electric fields for critical biological reactions including cofactor-mediated hydride transfer. We find both inter- and intramolecular electric fields influence the C-D frequency in NAD(P)H and nicotinamide-like models where the reactive C4-hydrogen has been deuterated. Hence, the C-D frequency can report both environmental electrostatics and conformational changes of the nicotinamide ring. Conformation-dependent effects are mediated through space as electrostatic effects, rather than through-bond. A Stark tuning rate of ∼0.57 cm-1/(MV/cm) was determined using both experimental and computational approaches, including vibrational solvatochromism, molecular dynamics simulations, and in silico Stark calculations. The vibrational probe's Stark tuning rate is shown to be robust and suitable for measuring fields along hydride transfer reaction coordinates in enzymes.

Deciphering Spectroscopic Signatures of Competing Ca2+ - Peptide Interactions.

Calcium-protein interactions are of paramount importance in biochemistry. They are a key element in a number of biological processes, such as neuronal signaling. Therefore, an understanding of the interaction at the molecular level is highly desirable. Here, we study the zwitterionic model peptide l-alanyl-l-alanine (2Ala), which has two distinct and competing binding sites for Ca2+: The carbonyl of the peptide bond and the C-terminus, the carboxylate group. We perform linear and two-dimensional IR spectroscopy experiments and find that the spectroscopic signatures of both moieties in the IR spectra change in amplitude and peak position upon the addition of CaCl2: A blueshift of the asymmetric carboxylate band and a redshift for the amide I mode. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations confirm the direct interaction of the Ca2+ ion at both the carboxylate and the amide CO site leading to different spectral responses. The blueshift of the asymmetric carboxylate band is caused by a localization of the charge, leading to a decoupling of the CO stretching modes of the carboxylate group. The slight redshift of the amide I mode of 2Ala upon the addition of CaCl2 contrasts the blueshift that has been observed for isolated amide motifs, such as N-methylacetamide (NMA). This difference is caused by the smaller number of water molecules being replaced by the Ca2+ ion for 2Ala's amide compared to less sterically hindered, isolated amide carbonyls, in conjunction with vibrational Stark effects. Our results highlight the importance of considering potential competing binding sites, such as the amide CO backbone, the termini and residues, as well as the nature of the hydration of both peptide and ion, when exploring ions' interacting with small peptides and larger proteins.

(Invited) Probe the Reaction Intermediates on Noble Metal Electrodes during Oer with Vibrational Sum Frequency Spectroscopy

Electrochemical water splitting on noble metal surface is an important reaction of both fundamental and application interest. It is well known that the bottleneck of this reaction is the poor kinetics for oxygen generation from water oxidation. Despite of years study, the mechanisms in terms of the roles of the thin oxides film that formed on the metal surface before/during oxygen evolution are still inexplicit. One of the main reasons is the lack of molecular level information about the oxide thin film structures. In this study, we investigated the electrochemical oxidation of gold and platinum in solutions with different pHs by employing surface specific vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy (VSFS)1-3. By analyzing the potential dependent behaviors of different types of adsorbed species, we could gain molecular level information regarding the structures and formation mechanisms of metal-oxides. The results of this study will provide essential data toward understanding the oxygen evolution mechanism and also suggest strategies for developing better water splitting catalysts. [1]. Zhang, I. Y.; Zwaschka, G.; Wang, Z.; Wolf, M.; Campen, R. K.; Tong, Y., Resolving the chemical identity of H2SO4 derived anions on Pt(111) electrodes: they're sulfate. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2019, 21 (35), 19147-19152.[2]. Zwaschka, G.; Wolf, M.; Campen, R. K.; Tong, Y., A Microscopic Model of the Electrochemical Vibrational Stark Effect: Understanding VSF Spectroscopy of (bi)Sulfate on Pt(111). Surf. Sci. 2018, 678, 78-85.[3]Gong, X.; Campen, R. K.; Tong, Y. Direct Observation of the Potential-Dependent Protonation and Reorientation of 4-(Dimethylamino)pyridine on Gold Electrodes. J. Phys. Chem. C 2023, 127 (33), 16615-16622. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.3c03038.

An Infrared Nanospectroscopy Technique for the Study of Electric-Field-Induced Molecular Dynamics.

Static electric fields play a considerable role in a variety of molecular nanosystems as diverse as single-molecule junctions, molecules supporting electrostatic catalysis, and biological cell membranes incorporating proteins. External electric fields can be applied to nanoscale samples with a conductive atomic force microscopy (AFM) probe in contact mode, but typically, no structural information is retrieved. Here we combine photothermal expansion infrared (IR) nanospectroscopy with electrostatic AFM probes to measure nanometric volumes where the IR field enhancement and the static electric field overlap spatially. We leverage the vibrational Stark effect in the polymer poly(methyl methacrylate) for calibrating the local electric field strength. In the relevant case of membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin, we observe electric-field-induced changes of the protein backbone conformation and residue protonation state. The proposed technique also has the potential to measure DC currents and IR spectra simultaneously, insofar enabling the monitoring of the possible interplay between charge transport and other effects.

Water Dimer under Electric Fields: An Ab Initio Investigation up to Quantum Accuracy.

It is well-established that strong electric fields (EFs) can align water dipoles, partially order the H-bond network of liquid water, and induce water splitting and proton transfers. To illuminate the fundamental behavior of water under external EFs, we present the first benchmark, to the best of our knowledge, of DFT calculations of the water dimer exposed to intense EFs against coupled cluster calculations. The analyses of the vibrational Stark effect and electron density provide a consistent picture of the intermolecular charge transfer effects driven along the H-bond by the increasing applied field at all theory levels. However, our findings prove that at extreme field regimes (∼1-2 V/Å) DFT calculations significantly exaggerate by ∼10-30% the field-induced strengthening of the H-bond, both within the GGA, hybrid GGA, and hybrid meta-GGA approximations. Notably, a linear correlation emerges between the vibrational Stark effect on OH stretching and H-bond strengthening: a 1 kcal mol-1 increase corresponds to an 80 cm-1 red-shift in OH stretching frequency.

Evaluating aliphatic CF, CF2, and CF3 groups as vibrational Stark effect reporters.

Given the extensive use of fluorination in molecular design, it is imperative to understand the solvation properties of fluorinated compounds and the impact of the C-F bond on electrostatic interactions. Vibrational spectroscopy can provide direct insights into these interactions by using the C-F bond stretching [v(C-F)] as an electric field probe through the vibrational Stark effect (VSE). In this work, we explore the VSE of the three basic patterns of aliphatic fluorination, i.e., mono-, di-, and trifluorination in CF, CF2, and CF3 groups, respectively, and compare their response to the well-studied aromatic v(C-F). Magnitudes (i.e., Stark tuning rates) and orientations of the difference dipole vectors of the v(C-F)-containing normal modes were determined using density functional theory and a molecular dynamics (MD)-assisted solvatochromic analysis of model compounds in solvents of varying polarity. We obtain Stark tuning rates of 0.2-0.8cm-1/(MV/cm), with smallest and largest electric field sensitivities for CFaliphatic and CF3,aliphatic, respectively. While average electric fields of solvation were oriented along the main symmetry axis of the CFn, and thus along its static dipole, the Stark tuning rate vectors were tilted by up to 87° potentially enabling to map electrostatics in multiple dimensions. We discuss the influence of conformational heterogeneity on spectral shifts and point out the importance of multipolar and/or polarizable MD force fields to describe the electrostatics of fluorinated molecules. The implications of this work are of direct relevance for studies of fluorinated molecules as found in pharmaceuticals, fluorinated peptides, and proteins.

Voltage-Induced Inversion of Band Bending and Photovoltages at Semiconductor/Liquid Interfaces.

At semiconductor/liquid interfaces, the surface potential and photovoltages are produced by a combination of band bending and quasi-Fermi-level splitting at the semiconductor surface, which are usually treated in a qualitative fashion. As such, it is important to develop quantitative metrics for the band energies and photovoltaics at these interfaces. Here, we present a spectroscopic method for monitoring the photovoltages produced at semiconductor/liquid junctions. The surface reporter molecule mercaptobenzonitrile (MBN) is functionalized on the photoelectrode surface (p-type silicon) and is measured using in situ surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy with a water immersion lens under electrochemical working conditions. In particular, the vibrational frequency of the C≡N stretch mode (ωCN) around 2225 cm-1 is sensitive to the local electric field in solution at the electrode/electrolyte interface via the vibrational Stark effect. Over the applied potential range from -0.8 to 0.6 V vs Ag/AgCl, we observe ωCN to increase from 2220 to 2229 cm-1 (at low laser power). As the incident laser power is increased from 83.5 μW to 13.3 mW, we observe additional shifts of ΔωCN = ±1 cm-1, corresponding to photovoltages produced at the semiconductor/liquid interface ΔV = ±0.2 V. Based on Mott-Schottky measurements, the flat band potential (FBP) occurs at -0.39 V vs Ag/AgCl. For applied potentials above the FBP, we observe ΔωCN > 0 (i.e., blue-shifts ∼1 cm-1) corresponding to positive photovoltages, whereas for applied potentials below the flat band potential, we observe ΔωCN < 0 (i.e., red-shifts ∼1 cm-1) corresponding to negative photovoltages. These spectroscopic observations reveal voltage-induced changes in the band bending at the semiconductor/liquid junction that, thus far, have been difficult to measure.

Excited-state symmetry breaking is an ultrasensitive tool for probing microscopic electric fields.

Microscopic electric fields are increasingly found to play a pivotal role in catalysis of enzymatic and chemical reactions. Currently, the vibrational Stark effect is the main experimental method used to measure them. Here, we demonstrate how excited-state symmetry breaking can serve as a much more sensitive tool to assess these fields. Using transient infrared spectroscopy on a quadrupolar probe equipped with nitrile groups we demonstrate both its superior sensitivity and that it does not suffer from the notorious hydrogen-bond induced upshift of the C[triple bond, length as m-dash]N stretch frequency. In combination with conventional ground-state infrared absorption, excited-state symmetry breaking can be used to disentangle even weak specific hydrogen bond interactions from general field effects. We showcase this capability with the example of weak C-H hydrogen bonds in polar aprotic solvents. Additionally, we reveal for the first time symmetry breaking driven not by solvent but by the entropy of the pendant side chains of the chromophore. Our findings not only enhance our understanding of symmetry-breaking charge-transfer phenomena but pave the way toward using them in electric field sensing modality.

Understanding the effect of specific adsorption on the vibrational Stark effect of adsorbates on an electrode surface via surface enhanced spectroscopy

Specific adsorption on a surface can substantially enhance the sensitivity of vibrational modes to an interfacial electric field by altering their electronic states.

Electrostatic Impact of Brefeldin A on Thiocyanate Probes Surrounding the Interface of Arf1-BFA-ARNO4M, a Protein-Drug-Protein Complex.

Protein-protein interactions regulate many cellular processes, making them ideal drug candidates. Design of such drugs, however, is hindered by a lack of understanding of the factors that contribute to the interaction specificity. Specific protein-protein complexes possess both structural and electrostatic complementarity, and while structural complementarity of protein complexes has been extensively investigated, fundamental understanding of the complicated networks of electrostatic interactions at these interfaces is lacking, thus hindering the rational design of orthosterically binding small molecules. To better understand the electrostatic interactions at protein interfaces and how a small molecule could contribute to and fit within that environment, we used a model protein-drug-protein system, Arf1-BFA-ARNO4M, to investigate how small molecule brefeldin A (BFA) perturbs the Arf1-ARNO4M interface. By using nitrile probe labeled Arf1 sites and measuring vibrational Stark effects as well as temperature dependent infrared shifts, we measured changes in the electric field and hydrogen bonding at this interface upon BFA binding. At all five probe locations of Arf1, we found that the vibrational shifts resulting from BFA binding corroborate trends found in Poisson-Boltzmann calculations of surface potentials of Arf1-ARNO4M and Arf1-BFA-ARNO4M, where BFA contributes negative electrostatic potential to the protein interface. The data also corroborate previous hypotheses about the mechanism of interfacial binding and confirm that alternating patches of hydrophobic and polar interactions lead to BFA binding specificity. These findings demonstrate the impact of BFA on this protein-protein interface and have implications for the design of other interfacial drug candidates.

Significantly Accelerated Photochemical Perfluorooctanoic Acid Decomposition at the Air-Water Interface of Microdroplets.

The efficient elimination of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) from the environment remains a huge challenge and requires advanced technologies. Herein, we demonstrate that perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) photochemical decomposition could be significantly accelerated by simply carrying out this process in microdroplets. The almost complete removal of 100 and 500 μg/L PFOA was observed after 20 min of irradiation in microdroplets, while this was achieved after about 2 h in the corresponding bulk phase counterpart. To better compare the defluorination ratio, 10 mg/L PFOA was used typically, and the defluorination rates in microdroplets were tens of times faster than that in the bulk phase reaction system. The high performances in actual water matrices, universality, and scale-up applicability were demonstrated as well. We revealed in-depth that the great acceleration is due to the abundance of the air-water interface in microdroplets, where the reactants concentration enrichment, ultrahigh interfacial electric field, and partial solvation effects synergistically promoted photoreactions responsible for PFOA decomposition, as evidenced by simulated Raman scattering microscopy imaging, vibrational Stark effect measurement, and DFT calculation. This study provides an effective approach and highlights the important roles of air-water interface of microdroplets in PFASs treatment.

AMOEBA Force Field Predicts Accurate Hydrogen Bond Counts of Nitriles in SNase by Revealing Water-Protein Interaction in Vibrational Absorption Frequencies.

Precisely quantifying the magnitude and direction of electric fields in proteins has long been an outstanding challenge in understanding biological functions. Nitrile vibrational Stark effect probes have been shown to be minimally disruptive to the protein structure and can be better direct reporters of local electrostatic field in the native state of a protein than other measures such as pKa shifts of titratable residues. However, interpretations of the connection between measured vibrational energy and electric field rely on the accurate molecular understanding of interactions of the nitrile group and its environment, particularly from hydrogen bonding. In this work, we compared the extent of hydrogen bonding calculated in two common force fields, the fixed charge force field Amber03 and polarizable force field AMOEBA, at 10 locations of cyanocysteine (CNC) in staphylococcal nuclease (SNase) against the experimental nitrile absorption frequency in terms of full width at half-maximum (FWHM) and frequency temperature line slope (FTLS). We observed that the number of hydrogen bonds correlated well in AMOEBA trajectories with respect to both the FWHM (r = 0.88) and the FTLS (r = -0.85), whereas the correlation of Amber03 trajectories was less reliable because the Amber03 force field predicted more hydrogen bonds in some mutants. Moreover, we demonstrated that contributions from the interactions between CNC and nearby water molecules were significant in AMOEBA trajectories but were not predicted by Amber03. We conclude that although the nitrile absorption peak shape could be qualitatively predicted by the fixed charge Amber03 force field, the detailed electrostatic environment measured by the nitrile probe in terms of the extent of hydrogen bonding could only be accurately observed in the AMOEBA trajectories, where the permanent dipole, quadrupole, and dipole-induced-dipole polarizable interactions were all taken into account. The significance of this finding to the goal of accurately predicting electric fields in complex biomolecular environments is discussed.

Fractional Charge Density Functional Theory and Its Application to the Electro-inductive Effect

We employed the chemical potential equalization principle to demonstrate that fractional electrons are involved in the electro-inductive effect as well as the vibrational Stark effect. By the chemical potential model, we were able to deduce that the frontier molecular orbitals of immobilized molecules can provide valuable insight into these effects. To further understand and quantify these findings, we introduced fractional charge density functional theory (FC-DFT), a canonical ensemble approach for open systems. This method allows for the calculation of electronic energies, nuclear gradients, and the Hessian matrix of fractional electronic systems. To correct the spurious delocalization error commonly found in approximate density functionals for small systems, we imposed the Perdew-Parr-Levy-Balduz (PPLB) condition through linear interpolation of two adjacent integer points (LI-FC-DFT). Although this approach is relatively simple in terms of molecular modeling, the results obtained through LI-FC-DFT calculations predict the same trend seen in experimental reactivity and the frequency change of immobilized molecules.

Carbon-deuterium bonds as reporters of electric fields in solvent and protein environments.

Use of vibrational probes to measure electric fields inside proteins has illuminated the role of electrostatics in biological applications ranging from binding interactions to enzyme catalysis. While prior work focused on strongly absorbing carbonyl and nitrile probes, more recent work has begun exploring weakly absorbing carbon-hydrogen bonds, beginning with measurements of electric fields inside oxidoreductases using the vibrational Stark effect (VSE). Originally, an alcohol dehydrogenase inhibitor containing a deuterated aldehyde was used to measure the field in two directions—on carbonyl and carbon-deuterium (C-D) bonds—in the enzyme active site. Now, several more distinct cases demonstrate how C-D probes map electric fields to vibrational frequency shifts, with new implications for our understanding of the VSE. To probe the field along a different dimension in oxidoreductases, we consider singly deuterated NAD(P)H which reports fields along the hydride transfer axis and whose frequency detection is facilitated by advancements in quantum cascade laser (QCL) technology for infrared spectroscopy. Unusually, the solvatochromic shift for this C-D probe appears opposite to that observed for carbonyls and nitriles; that is, the probe blueshifts in more polar solvents. In another example, the chromophore of green fluorescent protein (GFP) with a deuterated bridge carbon demonstrates similarly unusual frequency shifts in solvent and protein environments, with stronger fields parallel to the C-D dipole causing blueshifts. Observed Stark tuning rates for these molecules are recapitulated by in silico Stark calculations at the B3LYP or ωB97X-D/6-31+G(d) level. Stark tuning rate comparison with other C-D containing molecules including deuterated aldehydes and chloroform-d indicates a large sensitivity of the Stark tuning rate to molecular structure. We demonstrate how properly calibrated C-D probes can be effective reporters of electric fields in applications such as enzyme-catalyzed hydride transfer, biological photophysics and beyond.

Protein protic and aprotic interactions systematically mapped via IR spectroscopy and polarizable molecular dynamics.

Nitrile vibrational frequencies can readily report on the environmental electric field except in hydrogen bonding (H-bonding) environments, where factors other than the field contribute to frequency shifts; these environments are very commonly found in proteins, among other forms of condensed phase matter, so an alternative observable for unambiguous field determination is desirable. We previously showed that the nitrile's transition dipole moment (TDM) – and therefore peak area – experiences a new vibrational Stark effect that linearly correlates with the field in all environments, unlike frequencies. As a proof-of-concept, we demonstrated this relationship using nitrile probes in solvents and applied it to four variants of photoactive yellow protein (PYP) with nitrile-containing ortho-cyanophenylalanine residues introduced via amber suppression (JACS, 144, 7562-7567 (2022)). Eight further PYP mutants were constructed from one variant to modify the H-bonding/electric fields experienced by the nitrile probe. IR spectroscopy yielded four consistent IR lineshapes, interpreted as environmental phenotypes, which included mixtures of protic and aprotic environments. TDM-based electric fields were assessed, and high-resolution crystal structures were obtained to further interpretation of the spectroscopic data. The structures showed that either the mutated residue or newly accessible waters around the nitrile serve as the H-bond donor(s) and could explain the environmental phenotypes on a qualitative level. For a more quantitative assessment, we performed molecular dynamics (MD) on PYPs with polarizable AMOEBA force fields: a strong correlation is found between average electric fields from simulation and experimental TDM analysis, further establishing that the field-TDM relationship extends to complex protein environments. Also, characterizations of the nitrile environment (average structure, H-bond donor identities, etc.) correlated well with environmental phenotype, implying that polarizable force fields realistically model local protein interactions.

A unifying electrostatic basis for designing enzymes faster than natural ones.

Rationally designing proteins that outperform natural enzymes and de novo design of enzymes remain grand challenges after a decades-long effort. Achieving this goal would be a significant test for our understanding of enzyme catalysis and take us beyond the blackbox of directed evolution. In the course of studying liver alcohol dehydrogenase, we found that changing serine to threonine (S48T), the hydrogen bond donor at the active site, or replacing Zn2+ with Co2+, the catalytic metal site, both resulted in higher reaction rates of hydride transfer than that of the wild type. Using vibrational Stark effect spectroscopy, an experimental method enabling us to measure the electric field at the enzyme's active site, we found that both Co2+ and S48T mutations increase the active-site electric field, which shows a linear correlation with the reaction's free energy barrier. Given the correlation established by those single-point mutants, we designed double-point mutants and made quantitative predictions for both their field and activity—those predictions were found in close agreement with the experimental results. In particular, the S48T-Co2+ mutant shows a 50-fold increase in the hydride transfer rate compared to the wild type. We therefore demonstrate that the electrostatic interactions not only drive the catalysis of natural enzymes, but also can be leveraged for improving a natural enzyme. Furthermore, the observation that both serine and Zn2+ mutants follow the same linear correlation indicates that, despite their distinct chemical identities, the catalytic effects of hydrogen bonds and metal ions have a common electrostatic nature and can be quantified in a unifying manner. Taken together, we demonstrate electrostatic catalysis as a physical (and thus rational), quantitative, and predictive framework that unifies different intermolecular forces, for designing enzymes beyond the natural ones.

Protein Electric Fields Enable Faster and Longer-Lasting Covalent Inhibition of β-Lactamases.

The widespread design of covalent drugs has focused on crafting reactive groups of proper electrophilicity and positioning toward targeted amino-acid nucleophiles. We found that environmental electric fields projected onto a reactive chemical bond, an overlooked design element, play essential roles in the covalent inhibition of TEM-1 β-lactamase by avibactam. Using the vibrational Stark effect, the magnitudes of the electric fields that are exerted by TEM active sites onto avibactam's reactive C═O were measured and demonstrate an electrostatic gating effect that promotes bond formation yet relatively suppresses the reverse dissociation. These results suggest new principles of covalent drug design and off-target site prediction. Unlike shape and electrostatic complementary which address binding constants, electrostatic catalysis drives reaction rates, essential for covalent inhibition, and deepens our understanding of chemical reactivity, selectivity, and stability in complex systems.

Evidence for Caffeine’s Positive Impact on HOR/HER Activity through Water Rearrangement As Opposed to Direct Influence on the Interfacial Electric Field

The puzzling pH dependence of HOR/HER leading to the approximately 2 orders of magnitude loss in platinum group metal (PGM) activity in base has hindered both the practical design of electrochemical devices as well as the fundamental understanding of electrode/electrolyte interfaces.1 Explanations for this effect have ranged from the presence of adsorbates specific to alkaline conditions,2 shifts in the electrode potential of zero free charge (pzfc) and subsequent strengthening of the interfacial electric field,3 the orientation of interfacial water molecules, and changes in the binding energy of reaction intermediates.4–6 Recently, several innovative in situ techniques have been used to probe these theories, ranging from Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) to X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS), as well as novel computational studies to isolate the contributions of surface adsorbed hydroxide and water.2–4,7 Additionally, the identification of caffeine as a “double-layer dopant” capable of improving HOR/HER activity 5-fold on Pt(111) has provided the field with a model system with which to systematically test these theories.8 Despite this, an overarching understanding of the mechanism and caffeine’s promoting role is still unclear, and a more rigorous analysis of the electrode surface is necessary.The electrochemical interface is traditionally viewed with a double layer model, with specific electrochemical adsorbates existing in the Inner Helmholtz Plane (IHP), the first layer of non-adsorbates at the Outer Helmholtz Plane (OHP), and water in abundance. One leading theory used to understand the activity loss from acid to alkaline environments is the decrease in surface potential relative to the pzfc in base resulting in stronger electric fields which restrict the approach of reactive intermediates to the IHP/OHP. Caffeine is suspected of reducing the IEF strength through decreasing the pzfc to relevant HOR/HER potentials, creating an acidic like environment. In this work, we challenge this notion by using SEIRAS with CO as a probe molecule to directly measure the interfacial field strength in 0.1 M KOH solutions with the model caffeine system showing HOR/HER enhancement, as well as different concentrations of various organic species with no promoting kinetic impact. FTIR studies using CO as a probe molecule to measure stark tuning rates have long been used to directly measure the interfacial electric field strength, dictated by the majority species in the OHP.9,10 The low ST rate of 22 cm-1V-1 found for all of these species in our experiments, regardless of their impact on HOR/HER kinetics, implies reductions in IEF are not solely responsible for the KOH-caffeine system’s increased activity. Rather, caffeine induces changes to the interfacial water structure as evidenced by differences in water’s ν(O-H) stretching modes, allowing for more facile kinetics, the main parameter responsible for the “apparent pH dependence” of PGM HOR/HER. Durst, J. et al. New insights into the electrochemical hydrogen oxidation and evolution reaction mechanism. Energy Environ. Sci. 7, 2255–2260 (2014).McCrum, I. T. & Koper, M. T. M. The role of adsorbed hydroxide in hydrogen evolution reaction kinetics on modified platinum. Nat. Energy 5, 891–899 (2020).Sarabia, F. J., Sebastián-Pascual, P., Koper, M. T. M., Climent, V. & Feliu, J. M. Effect of the Interfacial Water Structure on the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction on Pt(111) Modified with Different Nickel Hydroxide Coverages in Alkaline Media. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 11, 613–623 (2019).Liu, E. et al. Interfacial water shuffling the intermediates of hydrogen oxidation and evolution reactions in aqueous media. Energy Environ. Sci. 13, 3064–3074 (2020).Yang, X., Nash, J., Oliveira, N. J., Yan, Y. & Xu, B. Understanding the pH Dependence of Underpotential Deposited Hydrogen on Platinum. Angew. Chemie - Int. Ed. 58, 17718–17723 (2019).Rebollar, L. et al. On the relationship between potential of zero charge and solvent dynamics in the reversible hydrogen electrode. J. Catal. 398, 161–170 (2021).Cheng, T., Wang, L., Merinov, B. V. & Goddard, W. A. Explanation of Dramatic pH-Dependence of Hydrogen Binding on Noble Metal Electrode: Greatly Weakened Water Adsorption at High pH. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140, 7787–7790 (2018).Intikhab, S. et al. Caffeinated Interfaces Enhance Alkaline Hydrogen Electrocatalysis. ACS Catal. 10, 6798–6802 (2020).Lambert, D. K. Vibrational Stark effect of CO on Ni(100), and CO in the aqueous double layer: Experiment, theory, and models. J. Chem. Phys. 89, 3847–3860 (1988).Anderson, M. R., Blackwood, D. & Pons, S. The behavior of the infrared spectrum of carbon monoxide adsorbed at platinum electrodes from non-aqueous solvents. J. Electroanal. Chem. 256, 387–395 (1988). Figure 1

Potential Distribution across Model Membranes.

Membrane models assembled on electrodes are widely used tools to study potential-dependent molecular processes at or in membranes. However, the relationship between the electrode potential and the potential across the membrane is not known. Here we studied lipid bilayers immobilized on mixed self-assembled monolayers (SAM) on Au electrodes. The mixed SAM was composed of thiol derivatives of different chain lengths such that between the islands of the short one, mercaptobenzonitrile (MBN), and the tethered lipid bilayer an aqueous compartment was formed. The nitrile function of MBN, which served as a reporter group for the vibrational Stark effect (VSE), was probed by surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy to determine the local electric field as a function of the electrode potential for pure MBN, mixed SAM, and the bilayer system. In parallel, we calculated electric fields at the VSE probe by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for different charge densities on the metal, thereby mimicking electrode potential changes. The agreement with the experiments was very good for the calculations of the pure MBN SAM and only slightly worse for the mixed SAM. The comparison with the experiments also guided the design of the bilayer system in the MD setups, which were selected to calculate the electrode potential dependence of the transmembrane potential, a quantity that is not directly accessible by the experiments. The results agree very well with estimates in previous studies and thus demonstrate that the present combined experimental-theoretical approach is a promising tool for describing potential-dependent processes at biomimetic interfaces.

Solvent Organization and Electrostatics Tuned by Solute Electronic Structure: Amide versus Non-Amide Carbonyls.

The ability to exploit carbonyl groups to measure electric fields in enzymes and other complex reactive environments by using the vibrational Stark effect has inspired growing interest in how these fields can be measured, tuned, and ultimately designed. Previous studies have concentrated on the role of the solvent in tuning the fields exerted on the solute. Here, we explore instead the role of the solute electronic structure in modifying the local solvent organization and electric field exerted on the solute. By measuring the infrared absorption spectra of amide-containing molecules, as prototypical peptides, and contrasting them with non-amide carbonyls in a wide range of solvents, we show that these solutes experience notable differences in their frequency shifts in polar solvents. Using vibrational Stark spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that while some of these differences can be rationalized by using the distinct intrinsic Stark tuning rates of the solutes, the larger frequency shifts for amides and dimethylurea primarily result from the larger solvent electric fields experienced by their carbonyl groups. These larger fields arise due to their stronger p-π conjugation, which results in larger C═O bond dipole moments that further induce substantial solvent organization. Using electronic structure calculations, we decompose the electric fields into contributions from solvent molecules that are in the first solvation shell and those from the bulk and show that both of these contributions are significant and become larger with enhanced conjugation in solutes. These results show that structural modifications of a solute can be used to tune both the solvent organization and electrostatic environment, indicating the importance of a solute-centric paradigm in modulating and designing the electrostatic environment in condensed-phase chemical processes.