Rotational mechanism of ammonium ion in water and methanol^†

Dynamics of ammonium and ammonia in solutions is closely related to the metabolism of ammoniac compounds, therefore plays an important role in various biological processes. NMR measurements indicated that the reorientation dynamics of NH₄⁺ is faster in its aqueous solution than in methanol, which deviates from the Stokes-Einstein-Debye rule since water has higher viscosity than methanol. To address this intriguing issue, we herein study the reorientation dynamics of ammonium ion in both solutions using numerical simulation and an extended cyclic Markov chain model. An evident decoupling between translation and rotation of methanol is observed in simulation, which results in the deviation of reorientation from the Stokes-Einstein-Debye rule. Slower hydrogen bond (HB) switchings of ammonium with methanol comparing to that with water, due to the steric effect of the methyl group, remarkably retards the jump rotation of ammonium. The observations herein provide useful insights into the dynamic behavior of ammonium in the heterogeneous environments including the protein surface or protein channels.