Ensemble Effects of Explicit Solvation on Allylic Oxidation

Umbrella-sampling density functional theory molecular dynamics (DFT-MD) has been employed to study the full catalytic cycle of the allylic oxidation of cyclohexene using a Cu(II) 7-amino-6-((2-hydroxybenzylidene)amino)quinoxalin-2-ol complex in acetonitrile to create cyclohexenone and H$_2$O as products. In comparison to gas-phase DFT, the solvent effect is observed as the rate determining allylic H-atom abstraction step has a free energy barrier of 12.1 $\pm$ 0.2 kcal/mol in solution. During the cycle, the explicit solvation and ensemble sampling of solvent configurations reveals important dehydrogenation and re-hydrogenation steps of the -NH$_2$ group bound to the Cu-site that are essential to catalyst recovery. This work illustrates the importance of ensemble solvent configurational sampling to reveal the breadth of processes that underpin the full catalytic cycle.