A specific MNDO parameterization for water

Abstract

A modified neglect of differential overlap has been parameterized specifically for water and its oligomers with the addition of polarization functions on both hydrogen and oxygen, Feynman dispersion, and a slight modification of the treatment of the hydrogen nucleus. The results show that it is possible to easily obtain good geometries and energies for hydrogen-bonded water aggregates. Data from the Benchmark Energy and Geometry Database water-cluster database were used to parameterize the new Hamiltonian for water clusters from the dimer to the decamer using MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ optimized geometries and CCSD(T)/CBS oligomerization energies. Seventy five oligomerization and rearrangement energies derived from the parameterization data are reproduced with a root mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.79 kcal mol−1 and the geometries of 38 oligomers with an RMSE of 0.17 Å. Interestingly, the Feynman dispersion term adopts a role different from that intended and tunes the atomic polarizability. The implications of these results in terms of future dedicated neglect of diatomic differential overlap Hamiltonians and those that use force-field-like atom types are discussed.