Energy Relaxation and Structural Dynamics of Protons in Water/DMSO Mixtures

Accelerating the Reaction Kinetics of CO2 Reduction to Multi-Carbon Products by Synergistic Effect between Cation and Aprotic Solvent on Copper Electrodes

Improving the selectivity of electrochemical CO2 reduction to multi-carbon products (C2+ ) is an important and highly challenging topic. In this work, we propose and validate an effective strategy to improve C2+ selectivity on Cu electrodes, by introducing a synergistic effect between cation (Na+ ) and aprotic solvent (DMSO) to the electrolyte. Based on constant potential ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, we first revealed that Na+ facilitates C-C coupling while inhibits CH3 OH/CH4 products via reducing the water network connectivity near the electrode. Furthermore, the water network connectivity was further decreased by introducing an aprotic solvent DMSO, leading to suppression of both C1 production and hydrogen evolution reaction with minimal effect on *OCCO* hydrogenation. The synergistic effect enhancing C2 selectivity was also experimentally verified through electrochemical measurements. The results showed that the Faradaic efficiency of C2 increases from 9.3 % to 57 % at 50 mA/cm2 under a mixed electrolyte of NaHCO3 and DMSO compared to a pure NaHCO3 , which can significantly enhance the selectivity of the C2 product. Therefore, our discovery provides an effective electrolyte-based strategy for tuning CO2 RR selectivity through modulating the microenvironment at the electrode-electrolyte interface.

Vibrational Energy Relaxation of Deuterium Fluoride in d-Dichloromethane: Insights from Different Potentials

Vibrationally excited deuterium fluoride (DF) formed by fluorine atom reaction with a solvent was found (Science, 2015, 347, 530) to relax rapidly (less than 10 ps) in acetonitrile-d₃ (CD₃CN) and dichloromethane-d₂ (CD₂Cl₂). However, insights into how CD₂Cl₂ facilitates this energy relaxation have so far been lacking, given the weak interaction between DF and a single CD₂Cl₂. In this work, we report the results of reactive simulations with a two-state reactive empirical valence bond (EVB) potential to study the energy deposited into nascent DF after transition-state passage and of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations using multiple different potential energy functions to model the relaxation dynamics. For these second simulations, we used the standard Merck molecular force field (MMFF) potential, an MMFF-based covalent-ionic empirical valence bond (EVB) potential (EVB^CI), a newly developed potential [referred to as MMFF(rDF)] which extends upon the MMFF potential by making the DF/CD₂Cl₂ interaction depend on the value of the D-F bond stretching coordinate and by taking the anisotropic charge distribution of the solvent molecules into account, the polarizable atomic multipole optimized energetics for biomolecular applications (AMOEBA) potential, and the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) potential. The relaxation is revealed to be highly sensitive to the potential used. Neither standard MMFF nor EVB^CI reproduces the experimentally observed rapid relaxation dynamics, and they also fail to provide a good description of the interaction potential between DF and CD₂Cl₂ as calculated using CCSD(T)-F12. This is attributed to the use of a point-charge model for the solute and to failing to model the anisotropic electrostatic properties of CD₂Cl₂. The MMFF(rDF), AMOEBA, and QM/MM potentials all reproduce the CCSD(T)-F12 two-body DF---CD₂Cl₂ interaction potential rather well but only with the QM/MM approach is fast vibrational relaxation obtained (lifetimes of ∼288, ∼186, and ∼8 ps, respectively), which we attribute to differences in the solute-solvent local structure. With QM/MM, a unique "many-body" interaction pattern in which DF is in close contact with two solvent Cl atoms and more than three solvent D atoms is found, but this structure is not seen with other potentials. The QM/MM dynamics also display enhanced solute-solvent interactions with vibrationally excited DF that induce a DF band redshift and hence a resonant overlap with solvent C-D modes, which facilitate the intermolecular energy transfer. Our work also suggests that potentials used to model energy relaxation need to capture the fine structure of solute-solvent interactions and not just the two-body part.

Nature of hydrated proton vibrations revealed by nonlinear spectroscopy of acid water nanodroplets

We use polarization-resolved femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy to investigate the vibrations of hydrated protons in anionic (AOT) and cationic (CTAB/hexanol) reverse micelles in the frequency range 2000-3500 cm-1. For small AOT micelles the dominant proton hydration structure consists of H3O+ with two OH groups donating hydrogen bonds to water molecules, and one OH group donating a weaker hydrogen bond to sulfonate. For cationic reverse micelles, we find that the absorption at frequencies >2500 cm-1 is dominated by asymmetric proton-hydration structures in which one of the OH groups of H3O+ is more weakly hydrogen-bonded to water than the other two OH groups.

Slow Proton Transfer in Nanoconfined Water

The transport of protons in nanoconfined environments, such as in nanochannels of biological or artificial proton conductive membranes, is essential to chemistry, biology, and nanotechnology. In water, proton diffusion occurs by hopping of protons between water molecules. This process involves the rearrangement of many hydrogen bonds and as such can be strongly affected by nanoconfinement. We study the vibrational and structural dynamics of hydrated protons in water nanodroplets stabilized by a cationic surfactant using polarization-resolved femtosecond infrared transient absorption spectroscopy. We determine the time scale of proton hopping in the center of the water nanodroplets from the dynamics of the anisotropy of the transient absorption signals. We find that in small nanodroplets with a diameter <4 nm, proton hopping is more than 10 times slower than in bulk water. Even in relatively large nanodroplets with a diameter of ∼7 nm, we find that the rate of proton hopping is slowed by ∼4 times compared with bulk water.

Vibrational Relaxation Dynamics of the Core and Outer Part of Proton-Hydration Clusters

We study the ultrafast relaxation dynamics of hydrated proton clusters in acetonitrile using femtosecond mid-infrared pump-probe spectroscopy. We observe a strong dependence of transient absorption dynamics on the frequency of excitation. When we excite the OH vibrations with frequencies ≤3100 cm^–1, we observe an ultrafast energy relaxation that leads to the heating of the local environment of the proton. This response is assigned to the OH vibrations of the water molecules in the core of the hydrated proton cluster. When we excite with frequencies ≥3200 cm^–1, we observe a relatively slow vibrational relaxation with a T₁ time constant ranging from 0.22 ± 0.04 ps at ν_ex = 3200 cm^–1 to 0.37 ± 0.02 ps at ν_ex = 3520 cm^–1. We assign this response to water molecules in the outer part of the hydrated proton cluster.