TURBOMOLE is a collaborative, multi-national software development project aiming to provide highly efficient and stable computational tools for quantum chemical simulations of molecules, clusters, periodic systems, and solutions. The TURBOMOLE software suite is optimized for widely available, inexpensive, and resource-efficient hardware such as multi-core workstations and small computer clusters. TURBOMOLE specializes in electronic structure methods with outstanding accuracy–cost ratio, such as density functional theory including local hybrids and the random phase approximation (RPA), GW-Bethe–Salpeter methods, second-order Møller–Plesset theory, and explicitly correlated coupled-cluster methods. TURBOMOLE is based on Gaussian basis sets and has been pivotal for the development of many fast and low-scaling algorithms in the past three decades, such as integral-direct methods, fast multipole methods, the resolution-of-the-identity approximation, imaginary frequency integration, Laplace transform, and pair natural orbital methods. This review focuses on recent additions to TURBOMOLE’s functionality, including excited-state methods, RPA and Green’s function methods, relativistic approaches, high-order molecular properties, solvation effects, and periodic systems. A variety of illustrative applications along with accuracy and timing data are discussed. Moreover, available interfaces to users as well as other software are summarized. TURBOMOLE’s current licensing, distribution, and support model are discussed, and an overview of TURBOMOLE’s development workflow is provided. Challenges such as communication and outreach, software infrastructure, and funding are highlighted.

An extension of the quantum cluster equilibrium theory to treat binary mixtures is introduced in this work. The necessary equations are derived and a possible implementation is presented. In addition an alternative sampling procedure using widely available experimental data for the quantum cluster equilibrium approach is suggested and tested. An illustrative example, namely, the binary mixture of water and dimethyl sulfoxide, is given to demonstrate the new approach. A basic cluster set is introduced containing the relevant cluster motifs. The populations computed by the quantum cluster equilibrium approach are compared to the experimental data. Furthermore, the excess Gibbs free energy is computed and compared to experiments as well.

Ionic liquids raise interesting but complicated questions for theoretical investigations due to the fact that a number of different inter-molecular interactions, e.g., hydrogen bonding, long-range Coulomb interactions, and dispersion interactions, need to be described properly. Here, we present a detailed study on the ionic liquids ethylammonium nitrate and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate, in which we compare different dispersion corrected density functional approximations to accurate local coupled cluster data in static calculations on ionic liquid clusters. The efficient new composite method B97-3c is tested and has been implemented in CP2K for future studies. Furthermore, tight-binding based approaches which may be used in large scale simulations are assessed. Subsequently, ab initio as well as classical molecular dynamics simulations are conducted and structural analyses are presented in order to shed light on the different short- and long-range structural patterns depending on the method and the system size considered in the simulation. Our results indicate the presence of strong hydrogen bonds in ionic liquids as well as the aggregation of alkyl side chains due to dispersion interactions.

No abstract

We present a first-principles calculation and mechanistic characterization of the ion product of liquid water (K W), based on Quantum Cluster Equilibrium (QCE) theory with a variety of ab initio and density functional methods. The QCE method is based on T-dependent Boltzmann weighting of different-sized clusters and consequently enables the observation of thermodynamically less favored and therefore low populated species such as hydronium and hydroxide ions in water. We find that common quantum chemical methods achieve semi-quantitative accuracy in predicting K W and its T-dependence. Dominant ion-pair water clusters of the QCE equilibrium distribution are found to exhibit stable 2-coordinate buttress-type motifs, all with maximally Grotthus-ordered H-bond patterns that successfully prevent recombination of hydronium and hydroxide ions at 3-coordinate bridgehead sites. We employ standard quantum chemistry techniques to describe kinetic and mechanistic aspects of ion-pair formation, and we obtain NBO-based bonding indices to characterize other electronic, structural, spectroscopic, and reactive properties of cluster-mediated ionic dissociation.