Computational approaches for efficiently modelling of small atmospheric clusters

Utilizing a comprehensive test set of 205 clusters of atmospheric relevance, we investigate how different DFT functionals (M06-2X, PW91, ωB97X-D) and basis sets (6-311++G(3df,3pd), 6-31++G(d,p), 6-31+G(d)) affect the thermal contribution to the Gibbs free energy and single point energy. Reducing the basis set used in the geometry and frequency calculation from 6-311++G(3df,3pd) → 6-31++G(d,p) implies a significant speed-up in computational time and only leads to small errors in the thermal contribution to the Gibbs free energy and subsequent coupled cluster single point energy calculation.