Comment on “Universal features in the lifetime distribution of clusters in hydrogen-bonding liquids” by I. Jukić, M. Požar, B. Lovrinčević and A. Perera, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2021, 23, 19537

Abstract

In the article published by Jukić et al. [I. Jukić et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2021, 23, 19537], the authors discovered a specific lifetime distribution of hydrogen bonds in some pure hydrogen-bonding liquids. The distribution derived by computer simulations in the range of 0–0.15 ps consists of three characteristic peaks. They call the first maximum the ‘dimer peak’, the second the ‘cluster peak’, and the third the ‘topology peak’. In the article in question, mostly linear- and circular-cluster-forming mono-ols were simulated to show that the third peak is universal in these H-bonding substances. Moreover, the topology of the clusters, which was wrongly assumed to be detected in the tertiary lifetime peak, is instead seen in the distribution of the first maximum.