Vibration Spectral Dynamics of Weakly Coordinating Water Molecules near an Anion: FPMD Simulations of Aqueous Solution of Tetrafluoroborate

The extent to which the ions affect the nearby water molecules will decide the structure-making or breaking nature of those ions in aqueous solutions. The effects of a weakly coordinating anion on the structure, dynamics and vibrational properties of water molecules are not so significant as compared to an anion capable of making strong ion-water hydrogen bonds. The present work deals with the first principles molecular dynamics study of an aqueous solution of such a weakly coordinating anion, tetrafluoroborate (BF4-), using dispersion-corrected DFT based first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) simulations. Various structural, dynamical and spectral properties such as radial distribution functions (RDFs), rotational dynamics, vibrational density of states (VDOS), hydrogen bond as well as dangling OH autocorrelation functions and residence dynamics were calculated to investigate the effects of the anion on nearby water molecules. The process of spectral diffusion was assessed through time series wavelet transformation of trajectories obtained from FPMD simulations. The first ion-water solvation shell extends up to 5.5 Å containing around 20 water molecules. The lifetime of ion-water hydrogen bond is found to be 1.19 ps, whereas water-water hydrogen bond lifetime is found to be 1.13 ps. Inside the solvation shell, the persistence time of dangling OH chromophores and the average frequency of OH modes inside the solvation shell are found to be more compared to bulk. Three timescales are found for solvation shell OH modes from frequency-frequency correlation function. The very short time scale is found for intact ion-water interaction; the short timescale is for ion-water hydrogen bond, and the long time scale is for escape dynamics of water molecules from the ion solvation shell. From the mean squared displacement, it is found that solvation water molecules diffuse slower than the bulk. However, solvation shell water molecules show faster relaxation from the analysis of rotational anisotropy. Within the longer time scale of spectral diffusion, this process (which is related to various dynamics of the molecules) is not yet complete as compared to fast anisotropic decay. This fact is similar to the experimental finding of spectral diffusion and anisotropy time scales in the aqueous solution of borohydride anion. The calculated results are also compared with available experimental data wherever possible