Molecular simulation study of speciation in supercritical aqueous NaCl solutions

Influence of Salts During Hydrothermal Biomass Gasification: The Role of the Catalysed Water-Gas Shift Reaction

Near-critical and supercritical water is an unusual reaction medium with extraordinary properties, varying with temperature and density. This opens the opportunity for new reactions and new technical processes. In the studies of synthesis reactions, total oxidation and biomass gasification interesting effects of salts are observed. These effects are assumed to be caused by complex formation, acidity/basicity or the presence of active hydrogen due to the water-gas shift reaction. The water-gas shift reaction is catalysed by salts and lead to the formation of hydrogen, which might react with other compounds.

This article focuses on the salt effects during hydrogen production by biomass gasification in supercritical water. This is a very interesting process to make use of “wet biomass”, which is up to now not applied in a technical process. Here salts influenced the main reactions pathways. Possible reasons are discussed.

Ion association in concentrated NaCI brines from ambient to supercritical conditions: results from classical molecular dynamics simulations

Highly concentrated NaCl brines are important geothermal fluids; chloride complexation of metals in such brines increases the solubility of minerals and plays a fundamental role in the genesis of hydrothermal ore deposits. There is experimental evidence that the molecular nature of the NaCl-water system changes over the pressure-temperature range of the Earth's crust. A transition of concentrated NaCl-H₂O brines to a "hydrous molten salt" at high P and T has been argued to stabilize an aqueous fluid phase in the deep crust. In this work, we have done molecular dynamic simulations using classical potentials to determine the nature of concentrated (0.5-16 m) NaCl-water mixtures under ambient (25°C, 1 bar), hydrothermal (325°C, 1 kbar) and deep crustal (625°C, 15 kbar) conditions. We used the well-established SPCE model for water together with the Smith and Dang Lennard-Jones potentials for the ions (J. Chem. Phys., 1994, 100, 3757). With increasing temperature at 1 kbar, the dielectric constant of water decreases to give extensive ion-association and the formation of polyatomic (Na _n Cl _m ) ^n-m clusters in addition to simple NaCl ion pairs. Large polyatomic (Na _n Cl _m ) ^n-m clusters resemble what would be expected in a hydrous NaCl melt in which water and NaCl were completely miscible. Although ion association decreases with pressure, temperatures of 625°C are not enough to overcome pressures of 15 kbar; consequently, there is still enhanced Na-Cl association in brines under deep crustal conditions.

Dynamic properties of hydrogen-bonded networks in supercritical water

Dynamic properties of supercritical water at temperatures between 573 and 773 K and densities between 0.49 and 0.83 g/cm(3) have been investigated by molecular dynamics simulation and compared to states located on the vapor-liquid coexistence curve. A flexible simple point charge potential has been assumed for interactions in the subcritical states, whereas a reparameterization of that model has been performed to model the supercritical states. The hydrogen bonding structure and the diffusion coefficients in an ensemble of simulated states were previously analyzed and a good agreement with available experimental data was found. Dynamic properties of hydrogen bonding like the bond lifetimes and the influence of hydrogen bonds in the vibrational spectra are discussed along a range of simulation conditions. A nonlinear behavior of the hydrogen-bond lifetime as a function of temperature is observed in subcritical water whereas a linear dependence is found in supercritical water. Special attention is paid to the intermolecular vibrational spectrum (10-400 cm(-1)). It has been observed that the mode centered at 200 cm(-1), attributed to the intermolecular O-O stretching vibration in the ambient state remains active in the supercritical states.