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In the denser and colder ($leq$20 K) regions of the interstellar medium (ISM), near-infrared observations have revealed the presence of sub-micron sized dust grains covered by several layers of Htextsubscript{2}O-dominated ices and dirtied by the presence of other volatile species. Whether a molecule is in the gas or solid-phase depends on its binding energy (BE) on ice surfaces. Thus, BEs are crucial parameters for the astrochemical models that aim to reproduce the observed evolution of the ISM chemistry. In general, BEs can be inferred either from experimental techniques or by theoretical computations. In this work, we present a reliable computational methodology to evaluate the BEs of a large set (21) of astrochemical relevant species. We considered different periodic surface models of both crystalline and amorphous nature to mimic the interstellar water ice mantles. Both models ensure that hydrogen bond cooperativity is fully taken into account at variance with the small ice cluster models. Density functional theory adopting both B3LYP-D3 and M06-2X functionals was used to predict the species/ice structure and their BE. As expected from the complexity of the ice surfaces, we found that each molecule can experience multiple BE values, which depend on its structure and position at the ice surface. A comparison of our computed data with literature data shows agreement in some cases and (large) differences in others. We discuss some astrophysical implications that show the importance of calculating BEs using more realistic interstellar ice surfaces to have reliable values for inclusion in the astrochemical models.
We investigated the structural and dynamical properties of a tetrahedrally coordinated crystalline ice from first principles based on density functional theory within the generalized gradient approximation with the projected augmented wave method. Fi
Wannier tight-binding models are effective models constructed from first-principles calculations. As such, they bridge a gap between the accuracy of first-principles calculations and the computational simplicity of effective models. In this work, we
Under cosmic irradiation, the interstellar water ice mantles evolve towards a compact amorphous state. Crystalline ice amorphisation was previously monitored mainly in the keV to hundreds of keV ion energies. We experimentally investigate heavy ion i
The binding energies of n < 100 carbon clusters are calculated using the ab-initio density functional theory code Quantum Espresso. Carbon cluster geometries are determined using several levels of classical techniques and further refined using densit
The PEO3:LiCF3SO3 polymer electrolyte has attracted significant research due to its enhanced stability at the lithium/polymer interface of high conductivity polymer batteries. Experimental studies have shown that, depending on the preparation conditi