Conformation-Induced Dynamical Heterogeneity of Water in the Solvation Shell of Zwitterionic γ-Aminobutyric Acid

How Far Is "Bulk Water" from Interfaces? Depends on the Nature of the Surface and What We Measure

Using systematic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we revisit the question: At what distance from an interface do the properties of "bulk water" get recovered? We have considered three different kinds of interfaces: nonpolar (hydrophobic; isooctane-water interface), charged (negative; AOT bilayer), and polar (zwitterionic; POPC bilayer). In order to interrogate the extent of perturbation of the interfacial water molecules as a function of the distance from the interface, we utilize a diverse range of structural and dynamical parameters. To capture the structural perturbations, we look into local density (translational order), local tetrahedral order parameter, and dipolar orientation of the water molecules. We also explore the anisotropic diffusion of the water molecules in the direction perpendicular to the interface as well as the planar diffusion parallel to the interface in a distance dependent manner. In addition, the orientational time correlation functions have been computed to understand the extent of slowdown in the rotational dynamics. As expected, the electrostatic field emanating from the charged AOT interface seems to have the highest long-range effect on the orientational order and dynamics of the water molecules, whereas specific interactions like hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction lead to significant trapping and kinetic slowdown for both AOT and POPC (zwitterionic) very close to the interface. Our analysis highlights that not only the length-scale of perturbation depends on the nature of the interfaces and specific interactions but also the type of water property that we measure/calculate. Different water properties seem to have widely different length-scale of perturbation. Orientational order parameters seem to be perturbed to a much longer length-scale as compared to translational order parameters. The global orientational order of water can be perturbed even up to ∼4-5 nm near the negatively charged AOT surface in the absence of any extra electrolyte. This observation has significant implication toward the interpretation of experimental measurements as well since different spectroscopic techniques would probe different parameters or water properties with possible mutual disagreement and inconsistency between different types of measurements. Thus, our study provides a broader and unifying perspective toward the aspect of "context dependent" structural and dynamical perturbation of "interfacial water".

Dynamic heterogeneity and viscosity decoupling: origin and analytical prediction

The molecular-level structure and dynamics decide the functionality of solvent media. Therefore, a significant amount of effort is being dedicated continually over time in understanding their structural and dynamical features. One intriguing aspect of solvent structure and dynamics is heterogeneity. In these systems, the dynamics follow , where p is the measure of viscosity decoupling. We analytically predicted that in such cases, the Stokes-Einstein relationship is modified to due to microdomain formation, and the second term on the right-hand side leads to viscosity decoupling. We validated our prediction by estimating the p values of a few solvents, and they matched well with the literature. Overall, we believe that our approach gives a simple yet unique physical picture to help us understand the heterogeneity of solvent media.