Masaki
Hiratsuka‡
a,
Ryo
Ohmura
a,
Amadeu K.
Sum
b,
Saman
Alavi
c and
Kenji
Yasuoka
*a
aDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Keio University, 3-4-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan. E-mail: yasuoka@mech.keio.ac.jp
bCenter for Hydrate Research, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
cCenter for Catalysis Research and Innovation, Department of Chemistry, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario KIN 7N5, Canada
First published on 25th March 2015
Clathrate hydrates are typically stabilized by suitably sized hydrophobic guest molecules. However, it has been experimentally reported that isomers of amyl-alcohol C5H11OH can be enclosed into the 51264 cages in structure II (sII) clathrate hydrates, even though the effective radii of the molecules are larger than the van der Waals radii of the cages. To reveal the mechanism of the anomalous enclathration of hydrophilic molecules, we performed ab initio and classical molecular dynamics simulations (MD) and analyzed the structure and dynamics of a guest–host hydrogen bond for sII 3-methyl-1-butanol and structure H (sH) 2-methyl-2-butanol clathrate hydrates. The simulations clearly showed the formation of guest–host hydrogen bonds and the incorporation of the O–H group of 3-methyl-1-butanol guest molecules into the framework of the sII 51264 cages, with the remaining hydrophobic part of the amyl-alcohol molecule well accommodated into the cages. The calculated vibrational spectra of alcohol O–H bonds showed large frequency shifts due to the strong guest–host hydrogen bonding. The 2-methyl-2-butanol guests form strong hydrogen bonds with the cage water molecules in the sH clathrate, but are not incorporated into the water framework. By comparing the structures of the alcohols in the hydrate phases, the effect of the location of O–H groups in the butyl chain of the guest molecules on the crystalline structure of the clathrate hydrates is indicated.
Clathrate hydrates are typically stabilized by suitably sized hydrophobic guest molecules. The van der Waals–Platteeuw theory,9 which mainly considers guest–host van der Waals interactions, is commonly used to estimate the phase equilibrium conditions of clathrate hydrates.10 Hydrophilic molecules like methanol, ethanol, and ammonia form hydrogen bonds with water and are historically considered thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors.11,12 However, recent experimental observations13–17 reported the formation, not inhibition, of clathrate hydrates with these hydrophilic guest molecules, which actually even show promoting effects.18–20 Methanol and ammonia clathrate hydrates are also considered as components of the astronomical bodies, such as in comets and Saturn's moons, Titan and Enceladus.13,19,21 In clathrate hydrates enclosing hydrophilic molecules, the formation of a guest–host hydrogen bond is experimentally observed by powder and single X-ray diffraction,22–25 FTIR and Raman measurements.16,26 Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of these systems show that guest–host hydrogen bonds induce Bjerrum defects in the water lattice hydrogen bond network and affect the molecular motion of the guest molecules.15,27–31 In these experimental and computational studies, the disorder of the water lattice induced by the guest–host hydrogen bond and dynamics of the guest molecules in the cages is revealed. This type of strong molecular interaction also exists in clathrate hydrates containing ionic species,17,32 halogen molecules,33,34 and polar molecules35 as guests and is reported to induce changes in the structures of the water lattice and occupancy of the guest substance. To make use of the effects induced by hydrophilic molecules and their impact on the thermodynamics of the clathrate, a more detailed understanding of the microscopic structures and molecular interactions of the guest–host molecules is important.
In this study, we focus on amyl-alcohol isomers C5H11OH as guests in clathrate hydrate phases. One of the amyl-alcohol isomers, 3-methyl-1-butanol, is enclosed in the 51268 cages of sH hydrate with xenon as help gas in the 512 and 435663 cages.36 A recent X-ray observation18 reported that this molecule can also be enclosed in the 51264 cages in sII hydrates with methane as help gas in the 512 cages. However, the length of the longest dimension of 3-methyl-1-butanol in a vacuum determined by DFT computations [B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p)] is 9.04 Å.16 This length is considered to be too long for the molecule to fit in the 51264 cage of sII, where the length of the major axis is 6.29 Å. In comparison, the major axis of the 51268 cage in sH hydrates is 8.44 Å.37 This enclathration of alcohol molecules is difficult to understand within the framework of the previous theory of the cage stability containing hydrophobic molecules. To understand this anomalous enclathration of a large molecule in the sII hydrate, Cha et al. synthesized clathrate hydrates containing eight amyl-alcohol isomers with methane as help gas and determined their structures.16 They found that amyl-alcohol isomers 3-methyl-1-butanol (9.04 Å end-to-end length in vacuum) and 2-2-dimethyl-1-propanol (an end-to-end length of 7.76 Å in a vacuum) form sII hydrates, while amyl-alcohol isomers, 2-methyl-2-butanol (an end-to-end length of 7.76 Å in a vacuum) and 3-methyl-2-butanol (an end-to-end length of 8.01 Å in a vacuum) form sH clathrate hydrates. The results were determined from Raman spectra measurements of the hydrate phases and observation that the free 3-methyl-1-butanol O–H stretching mode found in sH hydrates was not detected in the sII hydrate. It was concluded that the O–H groups of the amyl-alcohols are incorporated into the host cages to fit the relatively small 51264 cage in the sII hydrate. These results showed the significant effect of guest–host hydrogen bonding on the structure of the clathrate hydrate formed. To provide more detailed and direct insight of the guest–host hydrogen bond in clathrate hydrate, we performed MD simulation of amyl-alcohol molecules in sII (3-methyl-1-butanol + methane) and sH (2-methyl-2-butanol + methane) clathrate hydrates. For the characterization of the hydrogen bond and accurate computation of the shift of the intramolecular vibrational frequencies, quantum mechanical calculations of the hydrate phase were performed. Since the observation of the dynamics of guest–host hydrogen bonding is difficult on the time scale of ab initio MD simulations, we also performed classical MD simulations and analyzed the formation and lifetime of guest–host hydrogen bonds in clathrate hydrates.
The sII clathrate hydrate is cubic and composed of sixteen 512 cages and eight 51264 cages formed by 136 water molecules. In this calculation, 3-methyl-1-butanol and methane molecules occupied all 51264 and 512 cages, respectively. The unit cell of sH clathrate hydrates is hexagonal and composed of three 512, two 435663, and one 51268 cages with 34 water molecules per unit cell. The 2-methyl-2-butanol guest occupies the 51268 cages and methane the 512 and 435663 cages of the sH hydrate. Since the rotational relaxation time of the guest molecule is much larger than the time scale of the ab initio MD simulation, the initial configurations are generated by the classical MD simulations explained in the next section. The vibrational spectra of the guest molecules were computed by the Fourier transform of the velocity autocorrelation function of the hydrogen atom in the O–H group of the alcohol molecules computed from the MD simulation trajectories. The total simulation time was 9 ps. The initial 1 ps was used for the equilibration and the remaining 8 ps were used to average the physical values. The velocity autocorrelation function was calculated over 4 ps with a total of 200 autocorrelation functions calculated every 20 fs and then averaged. The resolution of the vibrational spectra was 8.64 cm−1. The Hann window function was employed for the Fourier transforms. In the initial 1 ps of equilibration, the velocity scaling method was employed to control the temperature to 113 K. The other 8 ps used to calculate the autocorrelation functions were performed in the constant NVE ensemble.
The probability of the hydrogen bonding computed from 10 ns of the classical MD simulation is shown in Table 1. The probability of the formation of hydrogen bonds with i molecules Pi (i = 1, 2 or none 0) is defined as
![]() | (1) |
3-Methyl-1-butanol in sII 51264 | 2-Methyl-2-butanol in sH 51268 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Temp./K | N bond | Hg⋯Ow | Og⋯Hw | Hg⋯Ow | Og⋯Hw |
113 | 0 | 0.017 | 0.004 | 0.147 | 0.022 |
1 | 0.983 | 0.597 | 0.853 | 0.958 | |
2 | — | 0.399 | — | 0.020 | |
200 | 0 | 0.054 | 0.018 | 0.291 | 0.052 |
1 | 0.946 | 0.680 | 0.709 | 0.932 | |
2 | — | 0.302 | — | 0.016 | |
270 | 0 | 0.152 | 0.057 | 0.430 | 0.114 |
1 | 0.848 | 0.691 | 0.570 | 0.882 | |
2 | — | 0.252 | — | 0.005 |
The RO–Hg⋯Ow guest–host hydrogen bond in the sII hydrate of 3-methyl-1-butanol was formed in 98% and 85% of the trajectory time at 113 K and 270 K, respectively. These probabilities are higher than other alcohol molecules such as ethanol, 1-propanol and 2-propanol in the sII clathrate hydrates calculated in previous classical MD simulations, which formed with about 83% and 48% probability at 100 K and 250 K, respectively.29 In the ab initio MD simulation at 113 K, all eight 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules in the unit cell formed hydrogen bonds with water molecules during the 8 ps simulation time. This high probability of guest–host hydrogen bonding shows the contribution of guest-water hydrogen bonding in stabilizing the hydrate structure, which is also evidenced in previous studies.16 The guest–host hydrogen bond allows the O–H group of 3-methyl-1-butanol to be incorporated into the cages and the hydrophobic part to fit into the 51264 cage. Without this particular form of hydrogen bonding, the amyl-alcohol guest molecule would be too large to fit into the 51264 sII hydrate cage. The oxygen atoms of the alcohol molecules act as one or two hydrogen bond proton acceptors from the cage water molecules. The alcohol O–H groups inserted into both five- and six-member water rings in the cages. Configurations where the guest alcohol O atom (Og) hydrogen bonds with the H atoms (Hw) of two water molecules were most important in the lower temperature simulations, as shown in Table 1.
Fig. 2 and 3 show the radial distribution function (RDF) for the hydrogen atom in the alcohol O–H group to the oxygen atoms in the cage water molecules calculated from the trajectory of ab initio MD and classical MD simulations.
![]() | ||
Fig. 2 Radial distribution function for the H atom in the O–H group of the guest alcohol molecule to the O atom in the water molecules (Hg⋯Ow; top) and the O atom in the O–H group of guest alcohol molecules to H atom in the water molecules (Og⋯Hw; bottom) in cages calculated by ab initio MD simulations. The length of the hydrogen bond in the 51264 cages in the sII hydrates is smaller than that in the 51268 cages in sH hydrates. The smaller distance reflects a strong hydrogen bond and caused the large frequency shift shown in Fig. 4(a). |
The first peak of the RDF is at 1.63 Å and 1.69 Å from the ab initio and classical MD simulations, respectively. These distances are smaller than the previous observation by classical MD, about 1.8 Å for ethanol and 2-propanol molecules, 1.78 Å for 1-propanol,29 and 2.2 Å in tert-butylamine59 in the 51264 cage in sII hydrate. On the other hand, the first peak of the RDF for the oxygen atom in the alcohol O–H group to the hydrogen atom in water molecules (Og⋯Hw) is at 1.7 Å at all temperatures and structures from classical MD simulations. This distance for the (Og⋯Hw) hydrogen bond is similar to the corresponding hydrogen bonding length in ethanol, 1-propanol, 2-propanol29 and tert-butylamine molecules in the sII hydrate59 (∼1.7 Å). The difference of the hydrogen bond length mainly appears in the Hg⋯Ow RDF.
Fig. 4(a) shows the calculated vibrational spectra of the hydrogen atoms in the O–H groups of 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules in the 51264 cage of sII hydrate calculated by ab initio MD. The calculated vibrational spectrum of the isolated alcohol molecule in a vacuum is also shown for comparison. The vibrational peak of the stretching vibrational mode of the free O–H for an isolated molecule is located at 3500 cm−1. In comparison, the vibrational peak of the hydrogen bonded O–H in the cages is shifted to lower frequency, in the range between 2800–3400 cm−1, along with a broadening in the peak shape. This result supports the interpretation of the previous experimental Raman observation of amyl-alcohols in the sII hydrate,16 in that the undetected peak of the free O–H stretching vibration in the sII hydrate is caused by the guest–host hydrogen bond and red shift of the O–H stretching frequency. The amyl-alcohol molecules in sII hydrates form hydrogen bonds with water molecules forming the cages with high probability and as a consequence, the vibrational modes of the amyl-alcohol molecules are drastically altered.
![]() | ||
Fig. 4 (a) Vibrational spectra of 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules in a vacuum (green dashed lines) and in the sII clathrate hydrates computed by the Fourier transform of the velocity autocorrelation function of the H atom in the O–H group from ab initio MD simulations (red line). The O–H stretching vibrational peak located at 3500 cm−1 in a vacuum shifted to lower frequency and also broadened due to the hydrogen bonding between guest and water molecules. (b) Vibrational spectra of 2-methyl-2-butanol molecules in a vacuum and in the sH hydrate. The red and blue solid lines are from the guest molecule that formed and not formed Hg⋯Ow hydrogen bonding, respectively. (shown in Fig. 1(c) and (d)). |
In the sH 2-methyl-2-butanol hydrate, the probability of the hydrogen bond was smaller than that in the sII hydrate enclosing 3-methyl-1-butanol (Hg⋯Ow in Table 1). In this case, about 85% of hydrogen atoms of O–H groups (Hg) in the 2-methyl-2-butanol molecules form guest–host hydrogen bonds in the cages of sH, but 15% of the Hg atoms did not form any guest–host hydrogen bonds even at 113 K as shown in Fig. 1(c) and (d), respectively. The oxygen atoms in the alcohol O–H form the guest–host hydrogen bondings in higher probability than the hydrogen atoms, about 95%. Fig. 4(b) shows the vibrational spectra of the hydrogen atoms in O–H groups of 2-methyl-2-butanol molecules in the 51268 cage of sH hydrate calculated from the ab initio MD simulations. The red solid line is the vibrational spectrum of selected alcohol molecules in sH hydrate forming a guest–host hydrogen bond as shown in the snapshot in Fig. 1(c). The hydrogen bonded O–H stretching vibrational peak of 2-methyl-2-butanol in the sH hydrates is shifted to lower frequency (3000–3300 cm−1). The shift is smaller than that in the sII hydrate containing 3-methyl-1-butanol. The blue line is the vibrational spectrum of a selected 2-methyl-2-butanol molecule in a sH cage that has no Hg⋯Ow guest–host hydrogen bond as shown in Fig. 1(d). The frequency of the O–H bond in 2-methyl-2-butanol molecule with no Hg⋯Ow hydrogen bond in the cage is similar to an uncaged molecule. The RDF for ROH to Ow is shown in Fig. 2 and 3. The length of the guest–host hydrogen bond in sH is larger (0.15 Å) than in sII and the peak shift of the O–H stretching vibration was less than that in the sII hydrate. This result suggests that the guest–host hydrogen bond can be formed in the 51268 cage but is weaker than that in the sII hydrate enclosing 3-methyl-1-butanol. This seemingly weaker hydrogen bonding in the sH hydrate is consistent with the observations of the hydrogen bonding strength of pinacolone and tert-butylmethylether in the sH clathrate hydrate.59
Here we consider structural reasons why different sII and sH structures are obtained for the different amyl-alcohol isomers. Even though the longest large atom distance in 2-methyl-2-butanol, 7.76 Å, is smaller than that in 3-methyl-1-butanol, 9.01 Å, only the enclathration of the latter molecule in the 51264 cage in sII was observed.16 The difference in hydrate structures primarily arises from the difference in the location of the O–H group in the amyl-alcohol guest molecules. To enclose the 3-methyl-1-butanol molecule into the relatively small 51264 cage in sII, the incorporation of the O–H group by the guest–host hydrogen bond is required. The O–H group of the 3-methyl-1-butanol is located at the end of the molecules and is not encumbered by nearby methyl groups. Therefore the O–H group can easily hydrogen bond with water molecules in the cages and even be inserted among the water molecules. As a result, 3-methyl-1-butanol can be incorporated into the relatively smaller 51264 cages in the sII hydrate. The O–H group of 2-methyl-2-butanol is adjacent to two methyl groups, which cause steric repulsions with cage water molecules when forming hydrogen bonds with the cage waters. As such, the O–H group of 2-methyl-2-butanol cannot as easily be incorporated into the hydrogen bonding network of the cage water molecules. A similar trend is also observed in other amyl-alcohol molecules discussed in the previous experimental work,16 namely, 2-2-dimethyl-1-propanol forming sII and 3-methyl-2-butanol forming sH hydrate. As shown here, the structure of the clathrate hydrates forming guest–host hydrogen bonds can strongly be affected by the microscopic structure of the guest molecule, including the position of the alcohol O–H groups and the size of the molecules.
The other significant factor on the stability of the clathrate hydrates is the conformers of the guest molecules. Recently Frankcombe and Kroes calculated the formation energies of the clathrate hydrates and showed the significant impact of the gauche configurations of the guest molecules on the hydrate stability.60 In the case of the butane molecules in the sII 51264 cages, the gauche conformation is more favorable than the trans conformation. To understand the relation between the conformers and the structure of the clathrate hydrates, we calculated the probability of the conformers of the alcohol guest molecules. The calculated probability of the gauche structure at 270 K was 40.9% in 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules in the sII 51264 and 4.41% in the 2-methyl-2-butanol molecules in the sH 51268 cages. The length of the gauche conformation of the 3-methyl-1-butanol molecule is smaller than the trans conformation of the molecule. Therefore the half of the 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules is compactly packed as the gauche structure in the sII hydrate to fit the size of the 51264 cages. On the other hand, most of the 2-methyl-2-butanol molecules in the sH 51268 cages form a trans structure. As such, the 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules are fitted to the 51262 cages by the guest–host hydrogen bonding and forming the gauche conformation.
Another possibility for the incorporation of 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules into the sII hydrate lattice is the displacement of a water molecule by the alcohol O–H group. The incorporation of the alcohol O–H groups as part of the water cages is possible and would retain the 28 oxygen vertices of the 51264 cage. However, this would introduce Bjerrum L-defects into the hydrogen bonding network, and make the cage structures more disordered. In one simulation, we artificially removed a water molecule from the hydrate lattice and computed the vibrational spectra of 3-methyl-1-butanol with ab initio MD. Fig. 5 shows the O–H vibrational spectra and the snapshot of the 3-methyl-1-butanol molecule replacing a water molecule in the 51264 cage in the sII hydrate. There are no drastic differences in the vibrational spectra of the 3-methyl-1-butanol incorporated into the cages as compared to the case where the O–H bond is inserted into the hydrogen bonded network, therefore it is difficult to detect this configuration using Raman spectroscopy.
![]() | ||
Fig. 5 Vibrational spectrum and snapshot of a 3-methyl-1-butanol molecule replacing a water molecule in the 51264 cage. The spectrum was computed from the H atom in the O–H group of 3-methyl-1-butanol molecules. The initial structure was artificially generated by removing one water molecule from the cage. The characteristics of the vibrational spectrum was very similar to the configuration with an O–H group inserted between the hydrogen bond of two water molecules shown in Fig. 4a. |
The guest–host hydrogen bondings affect the rotation of the guest molecules in the cages.28,29,59 To determine the effect of the guest–host hydrogen bonds on motion of the guest molecules, the rotation of the unit vector in the direction of the alcohol O–H group of guest molecules, μ, was calculated from classical MD simulation. The rotational motion of a guest molecule at a time t after some origin is characterized by the rotation of this unit vector,
cos![]() | (2) |
Fig. 6 shows the second Legendre polynomial M2(t) for the cosine of the rotation angle of the O–H bond, for 3-methyl-1-butanol in the sII hydrate and 2-methyl-2-butanol in the sH hydrate. The M2(t) function is closely linked with relaxation times in NMR spectroscopy.61,62 The M2(t) decays faster at higher temperatures as the alcohol guests gain greater rotational freedom in the cages. The relaxation times of intramolecular geometry changes are known to have a relaxation time of ∼1 ps28,29,59 and molecular rotations have larger relaxation time.
M2(t) = ½〈3cos2![]() | (3) |
Despite the higher probability of guest–host hydrogen bonding in the 51264 cages of sII as shown in Table 1, the relaxation of the M2(t) curves for 3-methyl-1-butanol in the 51264 cages is more quick than that of 2-methyl-2-butanol in the larger 51268 of the sH cages (the relaxation times of M2(t) determined by fitting of exponential functions are shown in the ESI†). To understand this trend, we calculate the continuous hydrogen bond time correlation function, SHB(t),63
![]() | (4) |
In the 10 ns of the classical MD simulation, we also observed guest–guest hydrogen bonds in the sII hydrate. Since all 51264 cages in sII hydrates share hexagonal faces with other 51264 cages, the rotating alcohol O–H groups in the adjacent cages can be found close to each other. As shown in Table 1, about 4% of the alcohol molecules formed guest–guest hydrogen bonds through the hexagonal faces at 270 K. The same geometric criteria of the OHg⋯Ow distance and the OHg⋯Ow angle as used for guest–host hydrogen bonds were used to determine the presence of guest–guest hydrogen bonding. A snapshot of a guest–guest hydrogen bond in the cages is shown in Fig. 8. In previous studies, the guest–guest interactions have always been excluded when estimating the thermodynamic stability of the hydrate phase. However, as seen in this study, such guest–guest interactions can have important consequences in the hydrate stability.
We should mention that we used full occupancy of the small cages with methane molecules. Previous MD simulations reported that the relaxation time is affected by the occupancy of clathrate hydrates.59,64 More detailed analysis focusing on the occupancy and types of guest molecules should be performed in future considering varying degrees of occupancy of the small cages.
Footnotes |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c4cp05732e |
‡ Current address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kogakuin University, 2665-1 Nakano, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0015, Japan. |
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