Tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics study on first proton transfer process of ORR catalyzed by cobalt-porphyrin complex

We investigated oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) dynamics catalyzed by cobalt-porphyrin using our original novel tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics method. First, we determined parameters for tight-binding calculation based on first-principles parameterization. We have successfully simulated a first proton transfer process of the oxygen reduction reaction with the explicit consideration of surrounding water molecules. The transferred proton formed hydrogen bonding with a water molecule and conformational change of the OOH species was observed. It was proved that our tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics method is effective for the investigation of oxygen reduction reaction dynamics in large complex system. (c) 2006 The Electrochemical Society.