A Comprehensive Liquid Simulation Study of Neat Formic Acid
Abstract:
An extensive liquid simulation study combining Monte Carlo and molecular
dynamics techniques was
performed for liquid formic acid. We investigated thermodynamic, dynamic, and
spectroscopic properties of
the liquid. The examination of several dynamic properties leads to a detailed
picture of the molecular
contributions to the macroscopic properties of the liquid phase. Although the
present model overestimates
the diffusion constant by about 25%, the calculated spectral densities for the
translational and rotational modes
of the solvent in combination with ab initio calculated harmonic frequencies
provide a valuable tool in the
qualitative assignment of several important features of the low-frequency liquid
phase Raman spectrum. The
relaxation time scales also give reasonably good agreement with dielectric
relaxation and NMR measurements.
Hydrogen-bonding dynamics provide interesting additional information on the
dynamical time scales. The
average lifetime of the strongest types of hydrogen bonds is less than 0.5 ps.
The relative population of the
dimers with two hydrogen bonds undergoes a significant change relative to the
gas phase population, the
weight of the less stable dimers increasing substantially. Approximately 1% of
the molecules participate in
hydrogen-bonding patterns which dominate the crystalline phase of the formic
acid. As an extension of the
present work for the liquid phase, we have also performed calculations for the
vapor-liquid equilibrium
coexistence curve predicting the critical temperature with 5% error. The
application of the thermodynamic
integration method results in thermodynamic excess quantities as the excess free
energy, entropy, and chemical
potential.