<< >> Up Title Contents SCM

22 QMMM_SURFACE: ZIEGLER-NATTA CATALYSIS

Sample directory: adf/e_QMMM_Surface/

This is an example of a Ziegler-Natta type catalytic system: a TiCl complex embedded in a MgCl surface with two organic substrates also attached to the surface. To make the computation faster, the QMMM approach is applied. The QM part includes only the active site and a piece of the MgCl surface.

The computation is formally a geometry optimization, but to keep the sample doable in a reasonable time the sample performs only one geometry update step. In the optimization, all of the MgCl surface atoms are frozen.

The standard force field has been modified to accommodate this calculation. The modified force field file is part of the sample run script. In this modified file, bonds are defined between Mg-Cl atoms in the MM connection table. This results in some torsions where the atoms are collinear. To rectify this problem, the torsional potentials for these atoms are set to potential type '0' (no potential).

There are no capping atoms mediating the bonds between the QM and MM regions because the boundary goes through the MgCl surface, which is ionically bound.

(Most of the contents of the modified force field file is omitted here. You quickly get the difference with the standard sybyl force field file in the ADF database by running a UNIX diff on the two files.

The "Iterations 1" subkey specification in the Geometry block specifies that only one step in the optimization is carried out.

(all other atoms in the Atoms block omitted here)

Many of the coordinates have a "F" after their initial value specification under Geovar, indicating that these coordinates will be kept frozen during optimization.

The remaining initial value specifications are omitted here.

The local file "champ_de_force.ff" is used as force field file. Of course, this is the file we've just set up in the run script.

Contents of the MM_CONNECTION_TABLE block is omitted.

Initial charges are specified for (all) the atoms. Whether or not the charges on the QM (and LI) atoms are used depends on the type of electrostatic coupling between the QM and MM system. See the QMMM manual for details.


<< >> Up Title Contents