ephedrine – welcome to somewhereville (.com)

"I'm high on life… and PCP." – Mitch Hedberg

In press, in the Journal of Physical Chemistry A. If the current rosters of pending manuscripts and calculations are any indication, this PCP paper will mark the near end of my use of DMol³ for the prediction (and experimental assignment) of terahertz (THz) spectra (that said, it is still an excellent tool for neutron scattering spectroscopy and is part of several upcoming papers).

While the DMol³ vibrational energy (frequency) predictions are generally in good agreement with experiment (among several density functionals, including the BLYP, BOP,VWN-BP, and BP generalized gradient approximation density functionals), the use of the difference-dipole method for the calculation of infrared intensities has shown itself to be of questionable applicability when the systems being simulated are charged (either molecular salts (such as PCP.HCl) or zwitterions (such as the many amino acid crystal structures)). The previously posted ephedrine paper (in ChemPhysChem) is most interesting from a methodological perspective for the phenomenal agreement in both mode energies AND predicted intensities obtained using Crystal06, another solid-state density functional theory program (that has implemented hybrid density functionals, Gaussian-type basis sets, cell parameter optimization and, of course, a more theoretically sound prediction of infrared intensities by way of Born charges). The Crystal06 calculations take, on average, an order of magnitude longer to run than the comparable DMol³ calculations, but the slight additional gain in accuracy for good density functionals, the much greater uniformity of mode energy predictions across multiple density functionals (when multiple density functionals are tested), and the proper calculation of infrared intensities all lead to Crystal06 being the new standard for THz simulations.

After a discussion with a crystallographer about what theoreticians trust and what they don't in a diffraction experiment, the topic of interatomic separation agreement between theory and experiment came up in the PCP.HCl analysis performed here (wasn't Wayne). As the position of hydrogen atoms in an X-ray diffraction experiment are categorically one of those pieces of information solid-state theoreticians do NOT trust when presented with a cif file, I reproduce a snippet from the paper considering this difference below (and, generally, one will not find comparisons of crystallographically-determined hydrogen positions and calculated hydrogen positions in any of the THz or inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy papers found on this blog).

The average calculated distance between the proton and the Cl^– ion is 2.0148 Angstroms, an underestimation of nearly 0.13 Angstroms when compared to the experimental data. This deviation is likely strongly tied to the uncertainly in the proton position as determined by the X-ray diffraction experiment and is, therefore, not used as a proper metric of agreement between theory and experiment. The distance from the nitrogen atom to the Cl^– ion has been determined to be an average of 3.0795 Angstroms, which is within 0.002 Angstroms of the experimentally determined bond length. This proper comparison of heavy atom positions between theory and experiment indicates that this interatomic separation has been very well predicted by the calculations.

Patrick M. Hakey, Matthew R. Hudson, Damian G. Allis, Wayne Ouellette, and Timothy M. Korter

Department of Chemistry, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-4100

The terahertz (THz) spectrum of phencyclidine hydrochloride from 7.0 – 100.0 cm^-1 has been measured at cryogenic (78 K) temperature. The complete structural analysis and vibrational assignment of the compound have been performed employing solid-state density functional theory utilizing eight generalized gradient approximation density functionals and both solid-state and isolated-molecule methods. The structural results and the simulated spectra display the substantial improvement obtained by using solid-state simulations to accurately assign and interpret solid-state THz spectra. A complete assignment of the spectral features in the measured THz spectrum has been completed at a VWN-BP/DNP level of theory, with the VWN-BP density functional providing the best-fit solid-state simulation of the experimentally observed spectrum. The cryogenic THz spectrum contains eight spectral features that, at the VWN-BP/DNP level, consist of fifteen infrared-active vibrational modes. Of the calculated modes, external crystal vibrations are predicted to account for 42% of the total spectral intensity.

Accepted in ChemPhysChem. Two important points. First, as shown in the crystal cell figure below, the low-frequency study of the ephedrine molecular solid is one that is best considered in the context of two infinite chains (red and blue) that are strongly interacting along the chain and very weakly interacting between chains. The key point is the realization that the ephedrine molecular solid is not best considered as four molecules packed into a crystal cell. The original round of mode assignments, based only in crystal cell contents, was a very complicated list of relative motions and nearly irreconcilable collisions of in- and out-of-phase motions. Thinking outside-the-unit-cell and realizing that the mode motions could be described far more easily (and logically) as chains instead of packed molecules made the final assignment and analysis of the terahertz spectrum very straightforward. The lesson is to take a good look at your molecular solid before attempting to describe the motions and consider divide-and-conquer approaches if you see correlations.

The second reason I am specifically pleased with this paper is that it is the first real terahertz study using Crystal06 that employs multiple generalized gradient approximation density functionals (BP, PBE, PW91) and basis sets (6-31G(d,p) and 6-311G(d,p)) and shows that these multiple levels of theory provide very similar results. That has, generally, NOT been the case with the many previous DMol³ studies that required difference-dipole intensity calculations instead of the use of more rigorous Wannier function-based intensities possible within the Crystal06 code.

Patrick M. Hakey, Damian G. Allis, Matthew R. Hudson, Wayne Ouellette, and Timothy M. Korter

Department of Chemistry, 1-014 Center for Science and Technology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-4100, USA

Abstract: The terahertz (THz) spectrum of (1R,2S)-(-)-ephedrine from 8.0 to 100.0 cm^-1 has been investigated at liquid-nitrogen (78.4 K) temperature. A complete structural analysis has been performed in conjunction with a vibrational assignment of the experimental spectrum using solid-state density functional theory (DFT). In order to obtain the crystallographic lattice constants at a temperature relevant for the DFT simulations, the compound has also been characterized by cryogenic single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Theoretical modeling (solid-state and isolated-molecule) of the compound includes the use of three generalized gradient approximation density functionals (BP, PBE, PW91) and two Gaussian-type basis sets (6-31G(d,p) and 6-311G(d,p)). Assignment of the THz spectrum is performed at a PW91/6-311G(d,p) level of theory, which provides the best solid-state simulation agreement with experiment. The solid-state analysis indicates that the seven experimental spectral features observed at liquid-nitrogen temperature are comprised of 13 IR-active vibrational modes. Of these modes, nine are external crystal vibrations and provide approximately 57% of the predicted spectral intensity.

www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/72514732/home?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedrine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz
www.crystal.unito.it/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_functional_theory
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basis_set_(chemistry)
accelrys.com/products/materials-studio/modules/dmol3.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannier_function
chemistry.syr.edu
www.syr.edu

Tag: ephedrine

Examination of Phencyclidine Hydrochloride via Cryogenic Terahertz Spectroscopy, Solid-State Density Functional Theory, and X-Ray Diffraction

An Investigation of (1R,2S)-(-)-Ephedrine Using Solid-State Density Functional Theory and Cryogenic Terahertz Spectroscopy

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