Experimental
solvation free energies are nowadays commonly included as target properties
in the validation and sometimes even in the calibration of condensed-phase
force fields. However, this is often done in a nonsystematic fashion,
by considering available solvation free energies involving an arbitrary
collection of solutes in a limited set of solvents (e.g., water, octanol,
chloroform, cyclohexane, or hexane). Here, this approach is made more
systematic by introducing the concept of cross-solvation free energies Δ
s
G
A:B
⊖ for a
set of N molecules that are all in the liquid state
under ambient conditions, namely the matrix of N
2 entries for Δ
s
G
A:B
⊖ considering each of the N molecules
either as a solute (A) or as a solvent (B). Relying on available experimental
literature followed by careful data curation, a complete Δ
s
G
A:B
⊖ matrix
of 625 entries is constructed for 25 molecules with one to seven carbon
atoms representative for alkanes, chloroalkanes, ethers, ketones,
esters, alcohols, amines, and amides. This matrix is then used to
compare the relative accuracies of four popular condensed-phase force
fields: GROMOS-2016H66, OPLS-AA, AMBER-GAFF, and CHARMM-CGenFF. In
broad terms, and in spite of very different force-field functional-form
choices and parametrization strategies, the four force fields are
found to perform similarly well. Relative to the experimental values,
the root-mean-square errors range between 2.9 and 4.0 kJ·mol–1 (lowest value of 2.9 for GROMOS and OPLS), and the
average errors range between −0.8 and +1.0 kJ·mol–1 (lowest magnitude of 0.2 for AMBER and CHARMM). These
differences are statistically significant but not very pronounced,
especially considering the influence of outliers, some of which possibly
caused by inaccurate experimental data.