Anionic water pentamer and hexamer clusters: An extensive study of structures and energetics

An extensive study of structures and energetics for anionic pentamer and hexamer clusters is performed employing high level ab initio quantum chemical methods, such as the density-fitted orbital-optimized linearized coupled-cluster doubles (DF-OLCCD), coupled-cluster singles and doubles (CCSD), and coupled-cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples [CCSD(T)] methods. In this study, sixteen anionic pentamer clusters and eighteen anionic hexamer clusters are reported. Relative, binding, and vertical detachment energies (VDE) are presented at the complete basis set limit (CBS), extrapolating energies of aug4-cc-pVTZ and aug4-cc-pVQZ custom basis sets. The largest VDE values obtained at the CCSD(T)/CBS level are 9.9 and 11.2 kcal mol⁻¹ for pentamers and hexamers, respectively, which are in very good agreement with the experimental values of 9.5 and 11.1 kcal mol⁻¹. Our binding energy results, at the CCSD(T)/CBS level, indicate strong bindings in anionic clusters due to hydrogen bond interactions. The average binding energy per water molecules is −5.0 and −5.3 kcal mol⁻¹ for pentamers and hexamers, respectively. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that the DF-OLCCD method approaches to the CCSD(T) quality for anionic clusters. The inexpensive analytic gradients of DF-OLCCD compared to CCSD or CCSD(T) make it very attractive for high-accuracy studies.