Solvation structure and dynamics of Ni2+(aq) from a polarizable force field

•We parameterize the Ni2+ ion within the AMOEBA polarizable forcefield.•Besides vdW parameters, we fit also polarizability, Thole damping and charge.•We use an empirical adjustment to account for the transition into condensed phase.•Very good structural and dynamical properties of Ni2+(aq) are demonstrated.

An aqueous solution of Ni2+ has often been used as a prototypic transition-metal system for experimental and theoretical studies in nuclear and electron-spin magnetic resonance (NMR and ESR). Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of Ni2+(aq) has been a part of many of these studies. As a transition metal complex, its MD simulation is particularly difficult using common force fields. In this work, we parameterize the Ni2+ ion for a simulation of the aqueous solution within the modern polarizable force field AMOEBA. We show that a successful parameterization is possible for this specific case when releasing the physical interpretation of the electrostatic and polarization parameters of the force field. In doing so, particularly the Thole damping parameter and also the ion charge and polarizability were used as fitting parameters. The resulting parameterizations give in a MD simulation good structural and dynamical properties of the [Ni(H2O)6]2+ complex, along with the expected excellent performance of AMOEBA for the water solvent. The presented parameterization is appropriate for high-accuracy simulations of both structural and dynamic properties of Ni2+(aq). This work documents possible approaches of parameterization of a transition metal within the AMOEBA force field.

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