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Substituted trimethylammonium cations serve as small molecule analogues for tetherable cations in anion exchange membranes. In turn, these membranes serve as the basis for alkaline membrane fuel cells by allowing facile conduction of hydroxide. As these cations are susceptible to hydroxide attack, they degrade over time and greatly limit the lifetime of the fuel cell. In this research, we performed density functional theory calculations to investigate the degradation pathways of substituted trimethylammonium cations to probe the relative durability of cation tethering strategies in alkyl and aromatic tethers. Our results show that significant changes in calculated energy barriers occur when substitution groups change. Specifically, we have found that, when available, the Hofmann elimination pathway is the most vulnerable pathway for degradation; however, this barrier is also found to depend on the carbon chain length and number of hydrogens susceptible to Hofmann elimination. SN2 barriers were also investigated for both methyl groups and substitution groups. The reported findings give important insight into potential tethering strategies for trimethylammonium cations in anion exchange membranes.

We report on a computational investigation of the passive transport of H2 and O2 between the external solution and the hydrogen-producing active site of CpI [FeFe]-hydrogenase from Clostridium pasteurianum. Two distinct methodologies for studying gas access are discussed and applied: (1) temperature-controlled locally enhanced sampling, and (2) volumetric solvent accessibility maps, providing consistent results. Both methodologies confirm the existence and function of a previously hypothesized pathway and reveal a second major pathway that had not been detected by previous analyses of CpI's static crystal structure. Our results suggest that small hydrophobic molecules, such as H2 and O2, diffusing inside CpI, take advantage of well-defined preexisting packing defects that are not always apparent from the protein's static structure, but that can be predicted from the protein's dynamical motion. Finally, we describe two contrasting modes of intraprotein transport for H2 and O2, which in our model are differentiated only by their size.

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Proton transfer and local structures in 3M (EW 825) and Nafion (EW 890) membranes are investigated in this study by both standard nonreactive molecular dynamics and the self-consistent iterative multistate empirical valence bond method, which is capable of simulating multiple reactive protons and accounting for the Grotthuss mechanism of proton transport. The Nafion and 3M systems have the same backbone, so we can isolate and compare the effect of the different side chains by calculating the radial distribution functions (RDFs), self-diffusion constants, and other properties for three hydration levels at 5, 9, and 14 at 300 and 353 K. The conformations of the 3M and Nafion side chains are also compared. We found that even though many results are similar for both F3C and SPC/Fw water models, certain trends such as the sulfonate clustering can depend on the water model selected. The relationship between the different RDFs for the sulfonate, water, and hydronium is discussed. The self-diffusion constants of water for both membranes are found to be close with respect to each water model selected, even though the experimental values for 3M at 300 K are higher. The calculated self-diffusion constants of the excess protons are found to be higher for 3M than Nafion for hydration levels 9 and 14 at 300 K but statistically the same at 353 K.