MC/AM1-SCI study of the effect of hydration shells on the nitrogen hyperfine coupling constant of the (CH3)2NO radical in aqueous solution

A combination of Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and semi-empirical AM1 molecular orbital (MO) singly-excited configuration interaction (SCI) calculation was applied to dimethyl nitroxide (DMNO) in aqueous solution and the solvent effect on the hyperfine coupling constant (HFCC) of nitrogen in DMNO was analyzed. During the MC simulation, 100 solution structures were picked up. For each solution structure, the DMNO–(H₂O)_n (n=1–40) clusters were cut out and the AM1-SCI calculation was applied to the cluster as a supermolecule. The HFCC of nitrogen was obtained by averaging the 100 solution structures. The H₂O molecules included in the supermolecule were determined by two different types of selection and the contribution of H₂O molecules to the HFCC was well elucidated in relation to the hydration shell structure.