Comparison of Thermodynamic Properties of Coarse-Grained and Atomic-Level Simulation Models

Thermodynamic data are often used to calibrate or test atomic‐level (AL) force fields for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. In contrast, the majority of coarse‐grained (CG) force fields do not rely extensively on thermodynamic quantities. Recently, a CG force field for lipids, hydrocarbons, ions, and water,1 in which approximately four non‐hydrogen atoms are mapped onto one interaction site, has been proposed and applied to study various aspects of lipid systems. To date, no extensive investigation of its capability to describe solvation thermodynamics has been undertaken. In the present study, a detailed picture of vaporization, solvation, and phase‐partitioning thermodynamics for liquid hydrocarbons and water was obtained at CG and AL resolutions, in order to compare the two types of models and evaluate their ability to describe thermodynamic properties in the temperature range between 263 and 343 K. Both CG and AL models capture the experimental dependence of the thermodynamic properties on the temperature, albeit a systematically weaker dependence is found for the CG model. Moreover, deviations are found for solvation thermodynamics and for the corresponding enthalpy–entropy compensation for the CG model. Particularly water/oil repulsion seems to be overestimated. However, the results suggest that the thermodynamic properties considered should be reproducible by a CG model provided it is reparametrized on the basis of these liquid‐phase properties. Thermodynamic data for liquid hydrocarbons and water is obtained at coarse‐grained (CG) and atomic‐level (AL) resolutions. The picture shows an example of coarse graining of the simulation model (a) and the fundamental thermodynamic quantities used to parameterize a simplified force field for MD simulations (b).