Fragment Molecular Orbital method-based Molecular Dynamics (FMO-MD) as a simulator for chemical reactions in explicit solvation

Fragment Molecular Orbital based-Molecular Dynamics (FMO-MD, Komeiji et al., Chem Phys Lett 2003, 372, 342) is an ab initio MD method suitable for large molecular systems. Here, FMO-MD was implemented to conduct full quantum simulations of chemical reactions in explicit solvation. Several FMO-MD simulations were performed for a sphere of water to find a suitable simulation protocol. It was found that annealing of the initial configuration by a classical MD brought the subsequent FMO-MD trajectory to faster stabilization, and also that use of bond constraint in the FMO-MD heating stage effectively reduced the computation time. Then, the blue moon ensemble method (Sprik and Ciccotti, J Chem Phys 1998, 109, 7737) was implemented and was tested by calculating free energy profiles of the Menschutkin reaction (H3N + CH3Cl --> +H3NCH3 + Cl-) in the presence and absence of the solvent water via FMO-MD. The obtained free energy profiles were consistent with the Hammond postulate in that stabilization of the product by the solvent, namely hydration of Cl-, shifted the transition state to the reactant-side. Based on these FMO-MD results, plans for further improvement of the method are discussed.