Solvatochromic shift of phenol blue in water from a combined Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics hybrid quantum mechanics-molecular mechanics and ZINDO approach.

The present work addresses the solvatochromic shift of phenol blue (PB) dye. For this purpose the results of Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics (CPMD) simulations for PB in gas phase are compared with results obtained for PB in water from CPMD hybrid quantum mechanics-molecular mechanics (CPMD-QM/MM) calculations. The absorption spectra were obtained using the intermediate neglect of differential overlap/spectroscopic-configuration interaction (INDO/CIS) method and were calculated for a multitude of configurations of the trajectory. The calculated lambda(max) for PB in gas phase was found to be about 535 nm, which is considerably lower than the lambda(max) reported for PB in nonpolar solvents. Different solvation shells for PB in water have been defined based on the solute-all-atoms and solvent center of mass radial distribution function (g(r(X-O))). The electronic excitation energies for PB computed in the presence of solvent molecules in an increasing number of solvation shells were calculated in a systematic way to evaluate their contributions to the solvatochrmic shift. The inclusion of solvent molecules in the hydration shell yields a lambda(max) of 640 nm, which contributes to almost 78% of the solvatochromic shift. The inclusion of solvent molecules up to 10 A in the g(r(X-O)) rdf yields a lambda(max) of 670 nm which is in good agreement with the experimentally reported value of 654-684 nm. Overall, the present study suggests that the combined CPMD-QM/MM and INDO-CIS approach can be used successfully to model solvatochromic shifts of organic dye molecules.