Hydrogen bonds are never of an “anti-electrostatic” nature : a brief tour of a misleading nomenclature
Abstract
A large amount of scientific works have contributed through the years to rigorously reflect the different forces leading to the formation of hydrogen bonds, the electrostatic and polarization ones being the most important among them. However, we have witnessed lately with the emergence of a new terminology, anti-electrostatic hydrogen bonds (AEHBs), that seems to contradict this reality. This nomenclature is used in the literature to describe hydrogen bonds between equally charged systems to justify the existence of these species, despite numerous proofs showing that AEHBs are, as any other hydrogen bond between neutral species, mostly due to electrostatic forces. In this Viewpoint, we summarize the state of the art regarding this issue, try to explain why this terminology is very misleading, and strongly recommend avoiding its use based on the hydrogen bond physical grounds.
Citation
Martín-Fernández , C , Montero-Campillo , M M & Alkorta , I 2024 , ' Hydrogen bonds are never of an “anti-electrostatic” nature : a brief tour of a misleading nomenclature ' , The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters , vol. 15 , no. 15 , pp. 4105-4110 . https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c00779
Publication
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1948-7185Type
Journal article
Description
This work was carried out with financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (projects PID2021-125207NB-C31 and PID2021-125207NB-C32).Collections
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