3D porous metal-organic framework for selective adsorption of methane over dinitrogen under ambient pressure.

We report a highly porous 3D metal-organic framework (MOF) that shows potential for coal mine methane (CMM) capture.

The anomalous halogen bonding interactions between chlorine and bromine with water in clathrate hydrates.

Clathrate hydrate phases of Cl2 and Br2 guest molecules have been known for about 200 years. The crystal structure of these phases was recently re-determined with high accuracy by single crystal X-ray diffraction. In these structures, the water oxygen-halogen atom distances are determined to be shorter than the sum of the van der Waals radii, which indicates the action of some type of non-covalent interaction between the dihalogens and water molecules. Given that in the hydrate phases both lone pairs of each water oxygen atom are engaged in hydrogen bonding with other water molecules of the lattice, the nature of the oxygen-halogen interactions may not be the standard halogen bonds characterized recently in the solid state materials and enzyme-substrate compounds. The nature of the halogen-water interactions for the Cl2 and Br2 molecules in two isolated clathrate hydrate cages has recently been studied with ab initio calculations and Natural Bond Order analysis (Ochoa-Resendiz et al. J. Chem. Phys. 2016, 145, 161104). Here we present the results of ab initio calculations and natural localized molecular orbital analysis for Cl2 and Br2 guests in all cage types observed in the cubic structure I and tetragonal structure I clathrate hydrates to characterize the orbital interactions between the dihalogen guests and water. Calculations with isolated cages and cages with one shell of coordinating molecules are considered. The computational analysis is used to understand the nature of the halogen bonding in these materials and to interpret the guest positions in the hydrate cages obtained from the X-ray crystal structures.

Molecular simulations and density functional theory calculations of bromine in clathrate hydrate phases.

Bromine forms a tetragonal clathrate hydrate structure (TS-I) very rarely observed in clathrate hydrates of other guest substances. The detailed structure, energetics, and dynamics of Br2 and Cl2 in TS-I and cubic structure I (CS-I) clathrate hydrates are studied in this work using molecular dynamics and quantum chemical calculations. X-ray diffraction studies show that the halogen-water-oxygen distances in the cages of these structures are shorter than the sum of the van der Waals radii of halogen and oxygen atoms. This suggests that the stabilizing effects of halogen bonding or other non-covalent interactions (NCIs) may contribute to the formation of the unique tetragonal bromine hydrate structure. We performed molecular dynamics simulations of Br2 and Cl2 clathrate hydrates using our previously developed five-site charge models for the dihalogen molecules [Dureckova et al. Can. J. Chem. 93, 864 (2015)] which reproduce the computed electrostatic potentials of the dihalogens and account for the electropositive σ-hole of the halogen bond donor (the dihalogen). Analysis of the radial distribution functions, enthalpies of encapsulation, velocity and orientation autocorrelation functions, and polar angle distributions are carried out for Br2 and Cl2 guests in various cages to contrast the properties of these guests in the TS-I and CS-I phases. Quantum chemical partial geometry optimizations of Br2 and Cl2 guests in the hydrate cages using the M06-2X functional give short halogen-water distances compatible with values observed in X-ray diffraction experiments. NCI plots of guest-cage structures are generated to qualitatively show the relative strength of the non-bonding interactions between dihalogens and water molecules. The differences between behaviors of Br2 and Cl2 guests in the hydrate cages may explain why bromine forms the unique TS-I phase.