The
Gibbs free energy of complexation between the Zn(II) species
and acetate ligands, forming the [Zn(OAc)
n
]2–n
complexes with n = 1, 2 in an ethanol solution, was assessed by two different theoretical
protocols based on thermodynamic cycles. In both approaches, the solution
phase Gibbs free energy of each reaction is computed by summing up
contributions from gas phase thermochemistry calculations to solvation
Gibbs free energies obtained in a hybrid fashion, i.e., each (neutral or electrically charged) solute was first solvated
by explicit solvent molecules in order to capture relevant (micro)
solute–solvent and/or solvent–solvent interactions and
then, a continuum model calculation is performed in order to get the
corresponding bulky solute–solvent contributions. For our first
thermodynamic protocol, here denominated as variant 1, a set of x independent solvent molecules are used
to screen each of the involved solutes, while the variant
2 strategy uses the fact that a set of solvent
molecules may exist as aggregates (or molecular clusters) in the solvent
macroscopic media, before the solvation process of solutes. Our selected
quantum theoretical protocol was the M05-2X/6-31+G(d)/SMD level. We
made a systematic exploration about the influence of several sources
of errors, such as the solvent conformation, the number of solvent
molecules used to screen each of the involved solutes, the coordination
geometry of the metallic center before and after the complexation
process, and the pertinence of using molecular geometries optimized
in gas phase and in ethanol solution, for the computation of the Gibbs
free energy variation regarding the two chemical reactions under study.
We set an accuracy threshold equal or less than 4.0 kcal·mol–1, with respect to the corresponding experimental records.
The robustness of our thermodynamic strategies was then tested by
computing the gas phase free energy contributions to the (solution
phase) reaction free energies here assessed, using different density
functional approximations, namely the M05-2X, BH&HLYP, PBE0, ωb97X-D
and M06-2X functionals in conjunction with the larger 6-311+G(d,p)
basis set.