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Segmentation and additive approach: A reliable technique to study noncovalent interactions of large molecules at the surface of single‐wall carbon nanotubes
Author(s) -
Torres Ana M.,
Scheiner Steve,
Roy Ajit K.,
GarayTapia Andrés M.,
Bustamante John,
Kar Tapas
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of computational chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.907
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1096-987X
pISSN - 0192-8651
DOI - 10.1002/jcc.24414
Subject(s) - zigzag , carbon nanotube , biomolecule , homo/lumo , non covalent interactions , interaction energy , chemical physics , molecule , nanotube , potential energy surface , polymer , computational chemistry , materials science , chemistry , nanotechnology , mathematics , organic chemistry , geometry , hydrogen bond
This investigation explores a new protocol, named Segmentation and Additive approach (SAA), to study exohedral noncovalent functionalization of single‐walled carbon nanotubes with large molecules, such as polymers and biomolecules, by segmenting the entire system into smaller units to reduce computational cost. A key criterion of the segmentation process is the preservation of the molecular structure responsible for stabilization of the entire system in smaller segments. Noncovalent interaction of linoleic acid (LA, C 18 H 32 O 2 ), a fatty acid, at the surface of a (10,0) zigzag nanotube is considered for test purposes. Three smaller segmented models have been created from the full (10,0)‐LA system and interaction energies were calculated for these models and compared with the full system at different levels of theory, namely ωB97XD, LDA. The success of this SAA is confirmed as the sum of the interaction energies is in very good agreement with the total interaction energy. Besides reducing computational cost, another merit of SAA is an estimation of the contributions from different sections of the large system to the total interaction energy which can be studied in‐depth using a higher level of theory to estimate several properties of each segment. On the negative side, bulk properties, such as HOMO‐LUMO (highest occupied molecular orbital ‐ lowest occupied molecular orbital) gap, of the entire system cannot be estimated by adding results from segment models. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.