Simulations of structure II H2 and D2 clathrates: potentials incorporating quantum corrections

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the stability of structure II H(2) and D(2) clathrates with different large and small guest occupancies at 160 and 250 K and 2.0 kbars. Simulations are performed with the recently proposed anisotropic site-site potentials of Wang for H2 and D2 [J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 76, 23 (2003)] which are parameterized to account for quantum corrections of order variant Planck's over 2pi(2) in the second virial coefficient. Occupancies of 0-2 in the small cages and 2-5 in the large cages are considered. Thermodynamic integration is used to determine the most stable guest occupancy at each temperature. Since lattice free energy and configurational energy differences are small for a number of different combinations of cage occupancies, one must expect that in bulk samples various combinations will indeed be observed. Special attention is given to the differences between H(2) and D(2) guests and implications on the hydrogen storage capacity of the clathrates are discussed.