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This study presents a comparison of several interception modelling approaches and their impact on the simulation of discharge, soil moisture content and groundwater level using the Hydrologiska Byr...

Deep neural networks (‘deep learning’) have emerged as a technology of choice to tackle problems in speech recognition, computer vision, finance, etc. However, adoption of deep learning in physical domains brings substantial challenges stemming from the correlative nature of deep learning methods compared to the causal, hypothesis driven nature of modern science. We argue that the broad adoption of Bayesian methods incorporating prior knowledge, development of solutions with incorporated physical constraints and parsimonious structural descriptors and generative models, and ultimately adoption of causal models, offers a path forward for fundamental and applied research.

The use of statistical/machine learning (ML) approaches to materials science is experiencing explosive growth. Here, we review recent work focusing on the generation and application of libraries from both experiment and theoretical tools. The library data enables classical correlative ML and also opens the pathway for exploration of underlying causative physical behaviors. We highlight key advances facilitated by this approach and illustrate how modeling, macroscopic experiments, and imaging can be combined to accelerate the understanding and development of new materials systems. These developments point toward a data-driven future wherein knowledge can be aggregated and synthesized, accelerating the advancement of materials science.

Atomic structures and adatom geometries of surfaces encode information about the thermodynamics and kinetics of the processes that lead to their formation, and which can be captured by a generative physical model. Here we develop a workflow based on a machine-learning-based analysis of scanning tunneling microscopy images to reconstruct the atomic and adatom positions, and a Bayesian optimization procedure to minimize statistical distance between the chosen physical models and experimental observations. We optimize the parameters of a 2- and 3-parameter Ising model describing surface ordering and use the derived generative model to make predictions across the parameter space. For concentration dependence, we compare the predicted morphologies at different adatom concentrations with the dissimilar regions on the sample surfaces that serendipitously had different adatom concentrations. The proposed workflow can be used to reconstruct the thermodynamic models and associated uncertainties from the experimental observations of materials microstructures. The code used in the manuscript is available at https://github.com/saimani5/Adatom_interactions.

The ability to probe the structure of a salt solution at the atomic scale is fundamentally important for our understanding of many chemical reactions and their mechanisms. The capability of neutron diffraction to "see" hydrogen (or deuterium) and other light isotopes is exceptional for resolving the structural complexity around the dissolved solutes in aqueous electrolytes. We have made measurements using oxygen isotopes on aqueous nitrate to reveal a small hydrogen-bonded water coordination number (3.9 ± 1.2) around a nitrate oxyanion. This is compared to estimates made using the existing method of nitrogen isotope substitution and those of computational simulations (>5-6 water molecules). The low water coordination number, combined with a comparison to classical molecular dynamics simulations, suggests that ion-pair formation is significant. This insight demonstrates the utility of experimental diffraction data for benchmarking atomistic computer simulations, enabling the development of more accurate intermolecular potentials.

Adsorption of light hydrocarbons (C1–C3) confined in the pores of silica aerogel (nominal density 0.2 g/cm3) was studied experimentally and by computer simulation. Five isotherms of ethane (25.0, 32.0, 32.3, 33.0, and 35.0 °C) were obtained over a temperature range including the critical temperature of the bulk fluid (Tc = 32.18 °C) to ∼220 bar by the vibrating tube densimetry (VTD) method, which yields unique information impossible to obtain by excess sorption measurements. Two isotherms (35 and 50 °C) of methane adsorption in SiO2 aerogel were measured far above its critical temperature, Tc = −82.59 °C, at 0–150 bar using a gravimetric method. The experimental pore fluid properties of methane, ethane, propane, and CO2 (obtained earlier by VTD for the same SiO2 aerogel sample) show behavior conforming to the principle of corresponding states over the entire covered reduced temperature ranges from Tr = 0.976 to Tr = 1.696. The magnitudes of the excess adsorption maxima and the reduced fluid densities wher...

Understanding of structural, electrical, and gravimetric peculiarities of water vapor interaction with ion-intercalated MXenes led to design of a multimodal humidity sensor. Neutron scattering coupled to molecular dynamics and ab initio calculations showed that a small amount of hydration results in a significant increase in the spacing between MXene layers in the presence of K and Mg intercalants between the layers. Films of K- and Mg-intercalated MXenes exhibited relative humidity (RH) detection thresholds of ∼0.8% RH and showed monotonic RH response in the 0-85% RH range. We found that MXene gravimetric response to water is 10 times faster than their electrical response, suggesting that H2O-induced swelling/contraction of channels between MXene sheets results in trapping of H2O molecules that act as charge-depleting dopants. The results demonstrate the use of MXenes as humidity sensors and infer potential impact of water on structural and electrical performance of MXene-based devices.

Tremendous strides in experimental capabilities of scanning transmission electron microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) over the past 30 years made atomically resolved imaging routine. However, consistent integration and use of atomically resolved data with generative models is unavailable, so information on local thermodynamics and other microscopic driving forces encoded in the observed atomic configurations remains hidden. Here, we present a framework based on statistical distance minimization to consistently utilize the information available from atomic configurations obtained from an atomically resolved image and extract meaningful physical interaction parameters. We illustrate the applicability of the framework on an STM image of a FeSexTe1–x superconductor, with the segregation of the chalcogen atoms investigated using a nonideal interacting solid solution model. This universal method makes full use of the microscopic degrees of freedom sampled in an atomically resolved image and can b...

International audience; Pseudocapacitive energy storage in supercapacitor electrodes differs significantly from the electrical double-layer mechanism of porous carbon materials, which requires a change from conventional thinking when choosing appropriate electrolytes. Here we show how simply changing the solvent of an electrolyte system can drastically influence the pseudocapacitive charge storage of the two-dimensional titanium carbide, Ti3C2 (a representative member of the MXene family). Measurements of the charge stored by Ti3C2 in lithium-containing electrolytes with nitrile-, carbonate- and sulfoxide-based solvents show that the use of a carbonate solvent doubles the charge stored by Ti3C2 when compared with the other solvent systems. We find that the chemical nature of the electrolyte solvent has a profound effect on the arrangement of molecules/ions in Ti3C2, which correlates directly to the total charge being stored. Having nearly completely desolvated lithium ions in Ti3C2 for the carbonate-based electrolyte leads to high volumetric capacitance at high charge–discharge rates, demonstrating the importance of considering all aspects of an electrochemical system during development.

The mechanisms of phase transitions have been previously explored at various theoretical and experimental levels. For a wide variety of compounds, the majority of studies are limited by observations at fixed temperature and composition, in which case, relevant information can be determined only from the behaviors at topological and structural defects. All analyses to date utilize macroscopic descriptors derived from structural information such as polarization or octahedral tilts extracted from the atomic positions, ignoring the multiple degrees of freedom observable from atomically resolved images. In this article, we provide a solution, by exploring the mechanisms of a phase transition between the trigonal prismatic and distorted octahedral phases of layered chalcogenides in the 2D MoS2–ReS2 system from the observations of local degrees of freedom, namely atomic positions by scanning transmission electron microscopy. We employ local crystallographic analysis based on statistical learning of atomic environments to build a picture of the transition from the atomic level up and determine local and global variables controlling the local symmetry breaking. We highlight how the dependence of the average symmetry-breaking distortion amplitude on global and local concentration can be used to separate local chemical as well as global electronic effects on the transition. This approach allows for the exploring of atomic mechanisms beyond the traditional macroscopic descriptions, utilizing the imaging of compositional fluctuations in solids to explore phase transitions over a range of observed local stoichiometries and atomic configurations.

We investigate the microscopic mechanisms of the overlap of interfacial structures in confined fluids and attempt to answer the question whether the confined structures can be predicted from the original density profiles of individual solid–fluid interfaces. For that purpose, we perform (globally) isobaric–isothermal (locally, grand canonical) molecular dynamics simulations to extract not only the axial distribution functions of the water sites for the uncoupled graphene–water interfaces, but also those corresponding to the confined aqueous environments over the interplate range 8 ≤ h (A) ≤ 28 typically at ambient conditions. We have tested two (i.e., an arithmetic and a geometric) superposition approximations for the singlet density of confined water between flat graphene plates, as well as for a combination of flat and corrugated graphene plates. The outcome of this study suggests that the answer to the title’s question is a “yes”, provided that the interplate distance h is large enough to avoid fluid g...

The emergence of scanning probe and electron beam imaging techniques has allowed quantitative studies of atomic structure and minute details of electronic and vibrational structure on the level of individual atomic units. These microscopic descriptors, in turn, can be associated with local symmetry breaking phenomena, representing the stochastic manifestation of the underpinning generative physical model. Here, we explore the reconstruction of exchange integrals in the Hamiltonian for a lattice model with two competing interactions from observations of microscopic degrees of freedom and establish the uncertainties and reliability of such analysis in a broad parameter-temperature space. In contrast to other approaches, we specifically specify a loss function inherent to thermodynamic systems and utilize it to estimate uncertainty in simulated realizations of different models. As an ancillary task, we develop a machine learning approach based on histogram clustering to predict phase diagrams efficiently using a reduced descriptor space. We further demonstrate that reconstruction is possible well above the phase transition and in the regions of parameter space when the macroscopic ground state of the system is poorly defined due to frustrated interactions. This suggests that this approach can be applied to the traditionally complex problems of condensed matter physics such as ferroelectric relaxors and morphotropic phase boundary systems, spin and cluster glasses, and quantum systems once the local descriptors linked to the relevant physical behaviors are known.

In materials characterization, traditionally a single experimental sample is used to derive information about a single point in the composition space, while the imperfections, impurities, and stochastic details of material structure are deemed irrelevant or complicating factors in the analysis. Here we demonstrate that atomic-scale studies of a single nominal composition can provide information about microstructures and thermodynamic response over a finite area of chemical space. Using the principles of statistical inference, we develop a framework for incorporating structural fluctuations into statistical mechanical models and use it to solve the inverse problem of deriving effective interatomic interactions responsible for elemental segregation in a La5/8Ca3/8MnO3 thin film. The results are further analyzed by a variational autoencoder to detect anomalous behavior in the composition phase diagram. This study provides a framework for creating generative models from a combination of multiple experimental ...

In this chapter, we summarized molecular dynamics (MD) simulation methods with ab initio, reactive, and non-reactive empirical force fields. We reviewed various MXene applications such as energy storage, adsorption, intercalation, catalysis, exfoliation, and photocatalytic water splitting which have been investigated with MD simulations. Non-reactive MD simulations provide high computational efficiency in simulations of large-scale systems and slow dynamics of electrode charging. Reactive force fields can accurately describe chemistry of the MXene systems to provide insights to the ion intercalation and water diffusion in MXene sheets as well as measuring the friction coefficient of these structures. Ab initio MD method is often used to predict the final structure and various properties of the system and confirm the stability of the structure. We briefly presented essential work in the literature to provide an insight on how MD simulations are incorporated in efforts to investigate MXenes.

We propose an orientation-averaged intermolecular potential model for the accurate computation of relevant thermodynamic and transport properties of steam at conditions typically encountered in extreme environments such as rocky exoplanetary atmospheres, aircraft and rocket engines, high temperature steam reforming and electrochemical reactors, as well as advanced ultra-supercritical steam power generators. We assess the reliability of the potential model to describe accurately the temperature dependence of relevant thermodynamic properties of rarified steam up to and beyond 3000K. Moreover, we discuss some fundamental issues including (i) the conditions at which an orientation-averaged intermolecular potential for a molecular fluid becomes an accurate representation of the fluid behaviour in extreme environments, (ii) the temperature range of validity of the approximations underlying an orientation averaging approach and, (iii) the methodology of force-field parameterisation to obtain an optimised representation, as well as the concomitant modelling of the thermodynamics and transport properties of rarified fluids. Finally, we illustrate how the simultaneous accurate description of the temperature dependence of the fluid’s collision integrals and second virial coefficient is crucial to the successful modelling of rarified steam in extreme environments.

This study focuses on the description of soil water dynamics at four sites with different land cover types, namely beech forest, conifer forest, meadow and clipped grass. The analysis was based on soil tensiometer measurements from five consecutive vegetation seasons (comprising both wet and dry years). We investigated both column average pressure heads and also their vertical distribution. The soil water balance was studied by the HYDRUS-1D model. The highest pressure heads were observed at the grassland site, followed by the meadow site. The forested sites were generally reaching lower pressure head values, which was a result of higher evapotranspiration and different soil properties. The differences between the spruce forest (Picea abies (L.)) and beech forest (Fagus sylvatica L.) were evident namely in dry periods, when the beech site was experiencing lower pressure heads. Contrarily, the spruce site was drier (with recorded lower pressure heads) in wet periods and at the beginning of each season. Compared to the conifer forest, lower pressure heads were observed in beech forest, namely at the bottom of the inspected soil column (down to 100 cm). The inspection of the soil water balance revealed different rates of evapotranspiration and drainage at all sites. The evapotranspiration was highest in the beech canopy followed by spruce and both grass covered sites. The differences between spruce and beech forest were based namely on the water consumption efficiency and differences in interception rates, vertical distribution of the roots, and soil hydraulic properties.

We explore the deconvolution of correlations for the interpretation of the microstructural behavior of aqueous electrolytes according to the neutron diffraction with isotopic substitution (NDIS) approach toward the experimental determination of ion coordination numbers of systems involving oxyanions, in particular, sulfate anions. We discuss the alluded interplay in the title of this presentation, emphasized the expectations, and highlight the significance of tackling the challenging NDIS experiments. Specifically, we focus on the potential occurrence of N i 2 + ⋯ S O 4 2 − $N{i^{2 + }} \cdots SO_4^{2 - }$ pair formation, identify its signature, suggest novel ways either for the direct probe of the contact ion pair (CIP) strength and the subsequent correction of its effects on the measured coordination numbers, or for the determination of anion coordination numbers free of CIP contributions through the implementation of null-cation environments. For that purpose we perform simulations of NiSO4 aqueous solutions at ambient conditions to generate the distribution functions required in the analysis (a) to identify the individual partial contributions to the total neutron-weighted distribution function, (b) to isolate and assess the contribution of N i 2 + ⋯ S O 4 2 − $N{i^{2 + }} \cdots SO_4^{2 - }$ pair formation, (c) to test the accuracy of the neutron diffraction with isotope substitution based coordination calculations and X-ray diffraction based assumptions, and (d) to describe the water coordination around both the sulfur and oxygen sites of the sulfate anion. We finally discuss the strength of this interplay on the basis of the inherent molecular simulation ability to provide all pair correlation functions that fully characterize the system microstructure and allows us to “reconstruct” the eventual NDIS output, i.e., to take an atomistic “peek” (e.g., see Figure 1) at the local environment around the isotopically-labeled species before any experiment is ever attempted, and ultimately, to test the accuracy of the “measured” NDIS-based coordination numbers against the actual values by the “direct” counting.

The importance of single-ion hydration thermodynamic properties for understanding the driving forces of aqueous electrolyte processes, along with the impossibility of their direct experimental measurement, have prompted a large number of experimental, theoretical, and computational studies aimed at separating the cation and anion contributions. Here we provide an overview of historical approaches based on extrathermodynamic assumptions and more recent computational studies of single-ion hydration in order to evaluate the approximations involved in these methods, quantify their accuracy, reliability, and limitations in the light of the latest developments. We also offer new insights into the factors that influence the accuracy of ion–water interaction models and our views on possible ways to fill this substantial knowledge gap in aqueous physical chemistry.

We study the microstructural analysis of aqueous electrolytes and present a detailed account of the fundamentals underlying the neutron scattering with isotopic substitution (NDIS) approach for the experimental determination of ion coordination numbers in systems involving both halide anions and oxyanions. We place particular emphasis on the frequently overlooked ion-pairing phenomenon, identify its microstructural signature in the neutron-weighted distribution functions, and suggest novel techniques to deal with either the estimation of the ion-pairing magnitude or the correction of its effects on the experimentally measured coordination numbers. We illustrate the underlying ideas by applying these new developments to the interpretation of four NDIS test-cases via molecular simulation, as convenient dry runs for the actual scattering experiments, for representative aqueous electrolyte solutions at ambient conditions involving metal halides and nitrates.

While quantum chemical simulations have been increasingly used as an invaluable source of information for atomistic model development, the high computational expenses typically associated with these techniques often limit thorough sampling of the systems of interest. It is therefore of great practical importance to use all available information as efficiently as possible, and in a way that allows for consistent addition of constraints that may be provided by macroscopic experiments. Here we propose a simple approach that combines information from configurational energies and forces generated in a molecular dynamics simulation to increase the effective number of samples. Subsequently, this information is used to optimize a molecular force field by minimizing the statistical distance similarity metric. We illustrate the methodology on an example of a trajectory of configurations generated in equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of argon and water and compare the results with those based on the force matching method.

We describe and test theoretical principles for consistent integration of experimental and ab initio data from diverse sources into a single statistical mechanical model. The approach is based on the recently introduced concept of statistical distance between partition functions, uses a simple vector algebra formalism to describe measurement outcomes and coarse-graining operations, and takes advantage of thermodynamic perturbation expressions for fast exploration of the model parameter space. The methodology is demonstrated on a combination of thermodynamic, structural, spectroscopic, and imaging pseudoexperimental data along with ab initio-type trajectories, which are incorporated into models describing the behavior of a near-critical fluid, liquid water, thin-film mixed oxides, and binary alloys. We evaluate how different target data constrain the model parameters and how the uncertainty associated with incomplete target information and limited sampling of the system's phase space might influence the choice of optimal parameters.

We present a detailed derivation of the complete set of expressions required for the implementation of an Ewald summation approach to handle the long-range electrostatic interactions of polar and ionic model systems involving Gaussian charges and induced dipole moments with a particular application to the isobaric-isothermal molecular dynamics (NPT-MD) simulation of our Gaussian charge polarizable (GCP) water model and its extension to aqueous electrolyte solutions. The set is comprised of the individual components of the potential energy, electrostatic potential, electrostatic field and gradient, electrostatic force, and corresponding virial. Moreover, we show how the derived expressions converge to known point-based electrostatic counterparts when the parameters, defining the Gaussian charge and induced dipole distributions, are extrapolated to their limiting point values. Finally, we test the simulation outcomes from the Ewald implementation against the corresponding reaction-field (RF) approach at three contrasting hydrogen-bonded water environments, including thermodynamic quantities, polarization behavior, and microstructural properties, where the simulated microstructures are compared with the available neutron scattering and X-ray diffraction data.

We studied the link between the water-mediated (tensile or compressive) strain-driven hydration free energy changes in the association process involving finite-size graphene surfaces, the resulting water–graphene interfacial behaviour, and the combined effect of surface strain and fluid confinement on the thermodynamic response functions and the dynamics of water. We found that either small surface corrugation (compressive strain) or surface stretching (tensile strain) is able to enhance significantly the water–graphene hydrophobicity relative to that of the unstrained surface, an effect that exacerbates the confinement impact on the isothermal compressibility and isobaric thermal expansivity of confined water, as well as on the slowdown of its dynamics that gives rise to anomalous diffusivity.

We carried out a systematic molecular simulation study of the behavior of a pair of finite-size graphene plates immersed in water at isobaric–isothermal conditions to provide insights into the nature of the water–graphene (corrugated) surface interactions. The goal was to address the link between the corrugation-driven hydration free energy changes in the association process involving graphene plates and the resulting water–graphene interfacial tension, to interrogate the effect of the surface corrugation and confinement on the thermodynamic response functions and the dynamics of confined water and to put the observed behavior in the context of Wenzel’s modification of Young’s equation. We found that graphene confinement induces a significant increase in the isothermal compressibility and isobaric thermal expansivity as well as a pronounced slowdown of the dynamics of water over that of the corresponding bulk counterpart, whose magnitudes depend on the type of surface corrugation involved. Our simulation ...

Since the single-ion thermodynamic properties of bulk solutions are not directly accessible from experiments, extrapolations have been devised to estimate them from experimental measurements on small-clusters. Extrapolations based on the cluster-pair-based approximation (CPA) technique (Tissandier et al. J. Phys. Chem. A 1998, 102, 7787-7794) and its variants are currently considered one of the most reliable source of single-ion hydration thermodynamic data and have been used as a benchmark for the development of molecular and continuum solvation models. Despite its importance, the CPA has not been thoroughly tested and recent studies have indicated inconsistencies with molecular simulations. The present work challenges the key CPA assumptions that the hydration properties of single cations and anions in growing clusters rapidly converge to each other following a monotonous trend. Using a combination of simulation techniques to study the transition between alkali halide ions in small clusters and bulk solution, we show that this convergence is rather slow and involves a surprising change in trends, which can result in significant errors in the original estimated single-ion properties. When these cluster-size-dependent effects are taken into account, the inconsistencies between molecular models and experimental predictions disappear, and the value of the proton hydration enthalpy based on the CPA aligns with estimates based on other principles.

The behaviour of fluids at mineral surfaces or in confined geometries (pores, fractures) typically differs from their bulk behaviour in many ways due to the effects of large internal surfaces and geometrical confinement. We summarize research performed on C-O-H fluids at nanoscale interfaces in materials of interest to the earth and material sciences (e.g., silica, alumina, zeolites, clays, rocks, etc.), emphasizing those techniques that assess microstructural modification and/or dynamical behaviour such as gravimetric analysis, small-angle (SANS) neutron scattering, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations will be described that provide atomistic characterization of interfacial and confined fluid behaviour as well as aid in the interpretation of the neutron scattering results.

The analysis of species behavior involving dilute fluid environments has been crucial for the advance of modern solvation thermodynamics through molecular-based formalisms to guide the development of macroscopic regression tools in the description of fluid behavior and correlation of experimental data (Chialvo 2013). Dilute fluid environments involving geologic formations are of great theoretical and practical relevance regardless of the thermodynamic state conditions. The most challenging systems are those involving highly compressible and reactive confined environments, i.e., where small perturbations of pressure and/or temperature can trigger considerable density changes. This in turn can alter significantly the species solvation, their preferential solvation, and consequently, their reactivity with one another and with the surrounding mineral surfaces whose outcome is the modification of the substrate porosity and permeability, and ultimately, the integrity of the mineral substrates. Considering that changes in porosity and permeability resulting from dissolution and precipitation phenomena in confined environments are at the core of the aqueous CO2-mineral interactions, and that caprock integrity (e.g., sealing capacity) depends on these key parameters, it is imperative to gain fundamental understanding of the mineral-fluid interfacial phenomena and fluid-fluid equilibria under mineral confinement at subsurface conditions. In order to understand the potential effects of acid gases as contaminants of supercritical CO2 streams, in the next section we will discuss the thermodynamic behavior of CO2 fluid systems by addressing two crucial issues in the context of carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) technologies: (i) Why should we consider (acid gas) CO2 impurities? and (ii) Why are CO2 fluid - mineral interactions of paramount relevance? ### Background on flue gas sources, composition, and CO2 - acid gases co-injection The control of anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions in the atmosphere by means of their capture and sequestration in deep geological reservoirs has emerged as a potential technology for the middle- to long-term mitigation of the greenhouse effect …

Solvent exchanges on solid surfaces and dissolved ions are a fundamental property important for understanding chemical reactions, but the rates of fast exchanges are poorly constrained. We probed the diffusional motions of water adsorbed onto nanoparticles of the mineral barite (BaSO4) using quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS) and classical molecular dynamics (MD) to reveal the complex dynamics of water exchange along mineral surfaces. QENS data as a function of temperature and momentum transfer (Q) were fit using scattering functions derived from MD trajectories. The simulations reproduce the dynamics measured in the experiments at ambient temperatures, but as temperature is lowered the simulations overestimate slower motions. Decomposition of the MD-computed QENS intensity into contributions from adsorbed and unbound water shows that the majority of the signal arises from adsorbed species, although the dynamics of unbound water cannot be dismissed. The mean residence times of water on each of the four surface sites present on the barite {001} were calculated using MD: at room temperature the low barium site is 194 ps, whereas the high barium site contains two distributions of motions at 84 and 2.5 ps. These contrast to 13 ps residence time on both sulfate sites, with an additional surface diffusion exchange of 66 ps. Surface exchanges are similar to those of the aqueous ions calculated using the same force field: Baaq2+ is 208 ps and SO4aq2- is 5.8 ps. This work demonstrates how MD can be a reliable method to deconvolute solvent exchange reactions when quantitatively validated by QENS measurements.

We present a detailed molecular-based characterization via isobaricisothermal molecular dynamics simulation of the microstructure and dynamics of water-rich aqueous CO2 solutions at silica surfaces and under extreme confinement between finite silica plates at state conditions relevant to geologic capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide. The study comprises three types of slit-pore plates to represent two extreme cases of surface polarity, and a mismatched pair of plates, to interrogate the fluid behavior at and confined between heterogeneous surfaces. We found layer formation of H2O and CO2 whose strength depends on the nature of the plate surface, i.e., stronger H2O layering at hydrophilic than at hydrophobic plates with a simultaneous weaker water mediated CO2 /hydrophilic-surface interactions. We observed the opposite behavior with the hydrophobic plates where the weaker water layering results from the CO2 mediated H2O/hydrophobicsurface interactions. Moreover, we illustrated how the interplay between these types of interactions and extreme fluid confinement, i.e., strong overlapping of interfacial structures, can induce a drying out of the pore environment whose immediate consequence is a significant CO2 concentration enhancement relative to that of the bulk environment. Finally, we assessed the effect of the nature of the plate surfaces on the translational diffusion coefficient of water,more » where we found that this property changes 2 monotonically at purely interfacial regions, but non-monotonically under confinement.« less

The binding of a negatively charged residue, aspartic acid (Asp) in tripeptide arginine-glycine-aspartic acid, onto a negatively charged hydroxylated rutile (110) surface in aqueous solution, containing divalent (Mg(2+), Ca(2+), or Sr(2+)) or monovalent (Na(+), K(+), or Rb(+)) cations, was studied by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The results indicate that ionic radii and charges will significantly affect the hydration, adsorption geometry, and distance of cations from the rutile surface, thereby regulating the Asp/rutile binding mode. The adsorption strength of monovalent cations on the rutile surface in the order Na(+) > K(+) > Rb(+) shows a "reverse" lyotropic trend, while the divalent cations on the same surface exhibit a "regular" lyotropic behavior with decreasing crystallographic radii (the adsorption strength of divalent cations: Sr(2+) > Ca(2+) > Mg(2+)). The Asp side chain in NaCl, KCl, and RbCl solutions remains stably H-bonded to the surface hydroxyls and the inner-sphere adsorbed compensating monovalent cations act as a bridge between the COO(-) group and the rutile, helping to "trap" the negatively charged Asp side chain on the negatively charged surface. In contrast, the mediating divalent cations actively participate in linking the COO(-) group to the rutile surface; thus the Asp side chain can remain stably on the rutile (110) surface, even if it is not involved in any hydrogen bonds with the surface hydroxyls. Inner- and outer-sphere geometries are all possible mediation modes for divalent cations in bridging the peptide to the rutile surface.

The dynamics of a single tripeptide Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) adsorbing onto negatively charged hydroxylated rutile (110) surface in aqueous solution was studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The results indicate that the adsorbed Na{sup +} ions play an important role in determining the binding geometry of RGD. With an initial 'horseshoe' configuration, the charged side groups (COO{sup -} and NH{sub 2}) of the peptide are able to interact with the surface through direct hydrogen bonds (H bonds) in the very early stage of adsorption. The Na{sup +} ions approach the positively charged Arg side chain, competing with the Arg side chain for adsorption to the negatively charged hydroxyl oxygen. In coordination with the structural adjustment of the peptide, the Arg residue is driven to detach from the rutile surface. In contrast, the Na+ ions in close proximity to the negatively charged Asp side chain contribute to the binding of the COO{sup -} group on the surface, helping the carboxyl oxygen not involved in COO{sup -}-surface H bonds to orientate toward the hydroxyl hydrogens. Once both carboxyl oxygens form enough H bonds with the hydroxyl hydrogens, the redundant ions move toward a more favorable adsorption site.

Injection of CO2 into subsurface geologic formations has been identified as a key strategy for mitigating the impact of anthropogenic emissions of CO2. A key aspect of this process is the prevention of leakage from the host formation by an effective cap or seal rock which has low porosity and permeability characteristics. Shales comprise the majority of cap rocks encountered in subsurface injection sites with pore sizes typically less than 100 nm and whose surface chemistries are dominated by quartz (SiO2) and clays. We report the behavior of pure CO2 interacting with simple substrates, i.e. SiO2 and muscovite, that act as proxies for more complex mineralogical systems. Modeling of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) data taken from CO2–silica aerogel (95% porosity; ∼7 nm pores) interactions indicates the presence of fluid depletion for conditions above the critical density. A theoretical framework, i.e. integral equation approximation (IEA), is presented that describes the fundamental behavior of near-...

The acid-base properties of cassiterite (alpha-SnO2) surfaces at 10-50 degrees C were studied using potentiometric titrations of powder suspensions in aqueous NaCl and RbCl media. The proton sorption isotherms exhibited common intersection points in the pH range of 4.0-4.5 under all conditions, and the magnitude of charging was similar but not identical in NaCl and RbCl. The hydrogen bonding configuration at the oxide-water interface, obtained from classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, was analyzed in detail, and the results were explicitly incorporated in calculations of protonation constants for the reactive surface sites using the revised MUSIC model. The calculations indicated that the terminal SnOH2 group is more acidic than the bridging Sn2OH group, with protonation constants (log KH) of 3.60 and 5.13 at 25 degrees C, respectively. This is contrary to the situation on the isostructural alpha-TiO2 (rutile), apparently because of the difference in electronegativity between Ti and Sn. MD simulations and speciation calculations indicated considerable differences in the speciation of Na+ and Rb+, despite the similarities in overall charging. Adsorbed sodium ions are almost exclusively found in bidentate surface complexes, whereas adsorbed rubidium ions form comparable numbers of bidentate and tetradentate complexes. Also, the distribution of adsorbed Na+ between the different complexes shows a considerable dependence on the surface charge density (pH), whereas the distribution of adsorbed Rb+ is almost independent of pH. A surface complexation model (SCM) capable of accurately describing both the measured surface charge and the MD-predicted speciation of adsorbed Na+/Rb+ was formulated. According to the SCM, the deprotonated terminal group (SnOH(-0.40)) and the protonated bridging group (Sn2OH+0.36) dominate the surface speciation over the entire pH range of this study (2.7-10). The complexation of medium cations increases significantly with increasing negative surface charge, and at pH 10, roughly 40% of the terminal sites are predicted to form cation complexes, whereas anion complexation is minor throughout the studied pH range.

The structure of simple linear alkanals from propanal to nonanal was studied utilizing configurational bias Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of the aldehydes modeled according to the transferable potential for phase equilibria-united atom force field (TraPPE-UA) and was compared to experimental small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) results. This was done by exploiting a recently developed approach for calculating the scattering intensities from theoretically obtained MC data by utilizing the Debye equation (Tomsic et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2007, 111, 1738). Similar calculations were also performed utilizing a well-established approach based on the reciprocal lattice. Comparison of the calculated scattering data with the experimental SAXS results in the first instance revealed information on the molecular organization in simple aldehydes and in addition also served as a good structural test of the TraPPE-UA force field used to model the aldehydes studied. However, it turned out that such a structural test is a rather strict test for the model which otherwise showed good agreement with the experimental data from the thermodynamic point of view.

The high energy resolution, coupled with the wide dynamic range, of the new backscattering spectrometer (BASIS) at the Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has made it possible to investigate the diffusion dynamics of hydration water on the surface of rutile (TiO2) nanopowder down to a temperature of 195 K. The dynamics measured on the BASIS on the time scale of tens of picoseconds to more than a nanosecond can be attributed to the mobility of the outer hydration water layers. The data obtained on the BASIS and in a previous study using the backscattering and disk-chopper spectrometers at the NIST Center for Neutron Research are coupled with molecular dynamics simulations extended to 50 ns. The results suggest that the scattering experiments probe several types of molecular motion in the surface layers, namely a very fast component that involves dynamics of water molecules with unsaturated hydrogen bonds, a somewhat slower component due to localized motions of all water molecules, and...

Metal oxide surface protonation under hydrothermal conditions is summarized. Important concepts and definitions are introduced first, followed by a brief overview of experimental methods and presentation of representative results. Finally, the modeling methods that are most useful in predicting surface protonation behavior between 0 and 300oC are presented and compared.

The structure and thermodynamics of water adsorbed at the (110) surface of rutile (α-TiO2) and cassiterite (α-SnO2) were studied by means of molecular dynamics simulations with atomic interactions represented by a classical forcefield based on the SPC/E model of water. To investigate the effect of surface water dissociation on the adsorption of additional layers of water, two extreme cases of completely hydroxylated and nonhydroxylated surfaces were considered. Axial density distributions and adsorption Helmholtz free energies of water for different types of surfaces were compared and related to thermal gravimetric analysis data from literature. We found that the dissociation of water in the first layer considerably changes the affinity of additional water to the surface, weakening hydrogen bonding between the first and second layer and strengthening cohesion between the second and third layer. Comparison with the experimental measurements of adsorption indicates that water dissociates on cassiterite while it stays associated on rutile. The degree of dissociation in the first layer is not strongly affected by the adsorption of additional water.

Molecular simulations on water–methanol mixtures were performed over the entire concentration range using primitive models that descend from realistic molecular models of both compounds. Since the primitive models reproduce, even semi-quantitatively, the structure of the pure compounds, the primary goal was to examine what thermodynamic features they are able to capture. Comparison of simulation data shows that the primitive and realistic models yield, qualitatively, the same behavior and that both fail to produce a minimum of the partial molar volume of methanol at low concentrations. Reasons for this failure along with details on the relation between specific intermolecular interactions and observed phenomena are discussed.

Quasielastic neutron scattering (QENS) experiments carried out using time-of-flight and backscattering neutron spectrometers with widely different energy resolution and dynamic range revealed the diffusion dynamics of hydration water in nanopowder rutile (TiO2) and cassiterite (SnO2) that possess the rutile crystal structure with the (110) crystal face predominant on the surface. These isostructural oxides differ in their bulk dielectric constants, metal atom electronegativities, and lattice spacings, which may all contribute to differences in the structure and dynamics of sorbed water. When hydrated under ambient conditions, the nanopowders had similar levels of hydration: about 3.5 (OH/H2O) molecules per Ti2O4 surface structural unit of TiO 2 and about 4.0 (OH/H2O) molecules per Sn2O4 surface unit of SnO2. Ab initio optimized classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of the (110) surfaces in contact with SPC/E water at these levels of hydration indicate three structurally distinct sorbed water layers L 1 ,L 2, and L3, where the L1 species are either associated water molecules or dissociated hydroxyl groups in direct contact with the surface, L 2 water molecules are hydrogen bonded to L1 and structural oxygen atoms at the surface, and L3 water molecules are more weakly bound. At the hydration levels studied, L3 is incomplete compared with axial oxygen density profiles of bulk SPC/E water in contact with these surfaces, but the structure and dynamics of L 1-L3 species are remarkably similar at full and reduced water coverage. Three hydration water diffusion components, on the time scale of a picosecond, tens of picoseconds, and a nanosecond could be extracted from the QENS spectra of both oxides. However, the spectral weight of the faster components was significantly lower for SnO2 compared to TiO2. In TiO2 hydration water, the more strongly bound L2 water molecules exhibited slow (on the time scale of a nanosecond) dynamics characterized by super-Arrhenius, “fragile” behavior above 220 K and the dynamic transition to Arrhenius, “strong” behavior at lower temperatures. The more loosely bound L 3 water molecules in TiO2 exhibited faster dynamics with Arrhenius temperature dependence. On the other hand, the slow diffusion component in L2 hydration water on SnO2, also on the time scale of a nanosecond, showed little evidence of super-Arrhenius behavior or the “fragile”-to-“strong” transition. This observation demonstrates that the occurrence of super-Arrhenius dynamic behavior in surface water is sensitive to the strength of interaction of the water molecules with the surface and the distribution of surface water molecules among the different hydration layers. Analysis of energy transfer spectra generated from the molecular dynamics simulations shows fast and intermediate dynamics in good agreement with the QENS time-of-flight results. Also demonstrated by the simulation is the fast (compared to 1 ns) exchange between the water molecules of the L2 and L3 hydration layers.

The primary liquid alcohols from ethanol to 1-hexanol were studied utilizing the configurational-bias Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of the modeled alcohols (transferable potential for phase equilibria-united atom model) and the small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) method. A novel approach for calculating the scattering intensities from the theoretically obtained MC data by utilizing the Debye equation and their further validation with experimental results was introduced. This procedure is important, since the common problem of how to initially separate the intra- and intermolecular contributions to the scattering when comparing the calculated and experimental data was successfully avoided. Nevertheless, the intra- and intermolecular contributions to the scattering were able to be investigated directly from the MC results. The most pretentious task of the procedure was the suppression of the MC box background scattering, which was solved by utilizing the averaging of the scattering intensities over the different box sizes. This method of the scattering intensity calculations enabled us to make a theoretical analog to the well-known small-angle neutron scattering contrast matching experiment that, in our case, nicely revealed the origin of the two alcohol scattering peaks in the SAXS regime of the scattering curves (0.3 A(-1)q3 A(-1)). For the example of butanol, the outer alcohol scattering peaks at approximately 1.40 A(-1) were unambiguously ascribed to the correlations between the alcohol hydrocarbon tails described by the gCH(x)CH(x)(r) pair correlation function. Similarly, the inner alcohol scattering peaks that shift from approximately 0.8 to approximately 0.4 A(-1) with an increasing alkyl chain length of the alcohol molecule are mainly the consequence of the O-O correlations. These findings were tested on pentanol/water mixtures and further applied to the results of the structural investigations on the binary and ternary microemulsion systems of the nonionic surfactant Brij 35 (Tomsic, et al. J. Phys. Chem. B 2004, 108, 7021; Tomsic, et al. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2006, 294, 194), which were in fact the actual motivation for this present study.