title: Exploring the hydration of Pb2+: ab initio studies and first-principles molecular dynamics.
abstract: Even though lead is a well-known toxicant widely scattered throughout the world since antiquity, its chemistry is poorly documented at the molecular level. Here we investigate the hydration of the Pb(2+) ion by means of first-principles molecular dynamics (Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics, CPMD). We found that the hydrated cation is heptacoordinated in a dynamically holodirected arrangement roughly corresponding to a fluxional distorted pentagonal bipyramid. The time-averaged Pb-O bond length is especially large and amounts to 2.70 A with an associated root-mean-square deviation of 0.26 A. This results from a dynamic exchange between short (<2.6 A), intermediate (2.6-3.0 A) and long (>3.0 A) Pb-O bonds. The latter very long Pb-O distance implies that the determination of the coordination number n(c) from experimental work may not necessarily yield values directly comparable to the theoretical value of n(c)=7, since not all experimental techniques would recognize such a long distance as a bond to the metal cation. Pronounced disorders are evidenced in the second shell, characteristic of a chaotropic cation, and exchanges between the first and second shells cannot be excluded on a timescale of a few tens of picoseconds.
authors.affiliation: Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6, Laboratoire de Chimie Théorique, UMR 7616, CC 137, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gourlaouen
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gérard
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Parisel