Effect of temperature and pressure on structural self-organization of aqueous sodium chloride solutions

NaCl aggregation in water at elevated temperatures and pressures: Comparison of classical force fields

The properties of water vary dramatically with temperature and density. This can be exploited to control its effectiveness as a solvent. Thus, supercritical water is of keen interest as solvent in many extraction processes. The low solubility of salts in lower density supercritical water has even been suggested as a means of desalination. The high temperatures and pressures required to reach supercritical conditions can present experimental challenges during collection of required physical property and phase equilibria data, especially in salt-containing systems. Molecular simulations have the potential to be a valuable tool for examining the behavior of solvated ions at these high temperatures and pressures. However, the accuracy of classical force fields under these conditions is unclear. We have, therefore, undertaken a parametric study of NaCl in water, comparing several salt and water models at 200 bar-600 bar and 450 K-750 K for a range of salt concentrations. We report a comparison of structural properties including ion aggregation, hydrogen bonding, density, and static dielectric constants. All of the force fields qualitatively reproduce the trends in the liquid phase density. An increase in ion aggregation with decreasing density holds true for all of the force fields. The propensity to aggregate is primarily determined by the salt force field rather than the water force field. This coincides with a decrease in the water static dielectric constant and reduced charge screening. While a decrease in the static dielectric constant with increasing NaCl concentration is consistent across all model combinations, the salt force fields that exhibit more ionic aggregation yield a slightly smaller dielectric decrement.

Ion Solvation and Water Structure in an Aqueous Sodium Chloride Solution in the Gigapascal Pressure Range

The structure of a 3 m (= mol/kg) NaCl aqueous solution at 1.3 and 1.7 GPa and 300 K, as well as at an ambient condition, is determined by synchrotron X-ray diffraction measurements combined with an empirical potential structure refinement (EPSR) modeling. When the solution is pressurized to the gigapascal pressure range, the ice-like hydrogen-bonded water network at 300 K/0.1 MPa is drastically perturbed to give rise to a simple, liquid-like water molecules arrangement retaining the hydrogen bonds. The coordination number of the chloride ion increases from around 6 at 0.1 MPa to about 16 at 1.7 GPa, accompanied by the extended solvation shells' evolution. On the other hand, the sodium ion's solvation structure does not change significantly with pressure and consists of 6-fold water molecules' coordination. We discuss a structure makers/breakers' concept for the ion solvation concerning the water structure in the gigapascal pressure range.

Simple electrolyte solutions: comparison of DRISM and molecular dynamics results for alkali halide solutions

Using the dielectrically consistent reference interaction site model (DRISM) of molecular solvation, we have calculated structural and thermodynamic information of alkali-halide salts in aqueous solution, as a function of salt concentration. The impact of varying the closure relation used with DRISM is investigated using the partial series expansion of order-n (PSE-n) family of closures, which includes the commonly used hypernetted-chain equation (HNC) and Kovalenko-Hirata closures. Results are compared to explicit molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, using the same force fields, and to experiment. The mean activity coefficients of ions predicted by DRISM agree well with experimental values at concentrations below 0.5 m, especially when using the HNC closure. As individual ion activities (and the corresponding solvation free energies) are not known from experiment, only DRISM and MD results are directly compared and found to have reasonably good agreement. The activity of water directly estimated from DRISM is nearly consistent with values derived from the DRISM ion activities and the Gibbs-Duhem equation, but the changes in the computed pressure as a function of salt concentration dominate these comparisons. Good agreement with experiment is obtained if these pressure changes are ignored. Radial distribution functions of NaCl solution at three concentrations were compared between DRISM and MD simulations. DRISM shows comparable water distribution around the cation, but water structures around the anion deviate from the MD results; this may also be related to the high pressure of the system. Despite some problems, DRISM-PSE-n is an effective tool for investigating thermodynamic properties of simple electrolytes.

Integral Equation Theory of Biomolecules and Electrolytes

The so-called three-dimensional version (3D-RISM) can be used to describe the interactions of solvent components (here we treat water and ions) with a chemical or biomolecular solute of arbitrary size and shape. Here we give an overview of the current status of such models, describing some aspects of “pure” electrolytes (water plus simple ions) and of ionophores, proteins and nucleic acids in the presence of water and salts. Here we focus primarily on interactions with water and dissolved salts; as a practical matter, the discussion is mostly limited to monovalent ions, since studies of divalent ions present many difficult problems that have not yet been addressed. This is not a comprehensive review, but covers a few recent examples that illustrate current issues.

Effects of salt on the lower critical solution temperature of poly (N-isopropylacrylamide)

Classical molecular dynamics simulations were performed to investigate the effects of salt on the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of Poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM). PNIPAM is often studied as a protein proxy due to the presence of a peptide bond in its monomer unit. PNIPAM is a temperature sensitive polymer which exhibits hydrophobic-hydrophilic phase transition at its LCST. The presence of salt in the solution will shift its LCST, typically to a lower temperature. This LCST shift follows the so-called Hofmeister series. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of PNIPAM in 1 M of NaCl, NaBr, NaI, and KCl were carried out to elucidate the effects of different salt on LCST and protein stability. Our results suggest that direct interactions between the salt cations and the polymer play a critical role in the shift of LCST and subsequently on protein stability. Further, cations have a much stronger affinity with the polymer, whereas anions bind weakly with the polymer. Moreover, the cation-polymer binding affinity is inversely correlated with the cation-anion contact pair association constant in solution.