Table : Free energies of formation (in eV) for the complexes formed by a single Zn 2+ cation with up to four ethanol molecules (E ), water molecules (w ), nitrate anions (N) or imidazolate anions (Im -). As derived from computations in vacuo (v) or in implicit ethanol solvent (s). The thermodynamic cycle method, described in Sec. 2, is employed to calculate the free energies of formation. Values for complexes with net coordination numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 are shaded in light yellow, blue, green and red color, respectively, to ease the interpretation of the energy trends. In italic, we show the label, with the format zlewn, where z, l, e, w , and n represent the number of Zn atoms and Im, ethanol, water, and nitrate molecules, respectively. These labels are employed in Figure .