We employed density functional theory (DFT)-based molecular
dynamics
simulations to explore the structure, dynamics, and spectral properties
of the protic ionic entity trimethylammonium chloride (TMACl). Structural
investigations include calculating the site–site radial distribution
functions (RDFs), the distribution of constituent cations and anions
in three-dimensional space, and combined distribution functions of
the hydrogen-bonded pair RDF versus angle, revealing the structural
characteristics of the ionic solvation and the intermolecular interactions
within ions. Further, we determined the instantaneous vibrational
stretching frequencies of the intrinsic N–H stretch probe modes
by applying the time-series wavelet method. The associated ionic dynamics
within the protic ionic compound were investigated by calculating
the time-evolution of the fluctuating frequencies and the frequency-time
correlation functions (FFCFs). The time scale related to the local
structural relaxation process and the average hydrogen bond lifetime,
ion cage dynamics, and mean squared displacement were investigated.
The faster decay component of the FFCFs, depicting the intermolecular
motion of intact hydrogen bonds in TMACl, is 0.07 ps for the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof
(PBE)-based simulation and 0.06 ps for the PBE-D2 representation.
The slower time scale of the longer picosecond decay time component
of PBE and PBE-D2 representations are 3.13 and 2.87 ps, respectively.
These picosecond time scales represent more significant fluctuations
of the hydrogen-bonding partners in the ionic entity and hydrogen-bond
jump events accompanied by large angular jumps. The longest picosecond
time scales represent structural relaxation, including large angular
jumps and ion-pair dynamics. Also, ion cage lifetimes correlate with
the slowest time scale of the associated dynamics of vibrational spectral
diffusion despite the type of DFT functional. This study benchmarks
DFT treatments of the exchange-correlation functional with and without
the van der Waals (vdW) dispersion correction scheme. The inclusion
of vdW interactions to the PBE functional represents a less structured
state of the ionic entity and faster dynamics of the molecular motions
relative to the one predicted by the PBE system. All the results illustrate
the necessity of accurately describing the Coulomb interactions, vdW
dispersive interactive forces, and localized hydrogen bonds required
to sustain the energetic balance in this ionic salt.