Discrete Fractional Component Monte Carlo Simulation Study of Dilute Nonionic Surfactants at the Air-Water Interface

Determining interfacial tension and critical micelle concentrations of surfactants from atomistic molecular simulations

Hypothesis Atomistically-detailed models of surfactants provide quantitative information on the molecular interactions and spatial distributions at fluid interfaces. Hence, it should be possible to extract from this information, macroscopical thermophysical properties such as interfacial tension, critical micelle concentrations and the relationship between these properties and the bulk fluid surfactant concentrations. Simulations and Experiments Molecular-scale interfacial of systems containing n-dodecyl β-glucoside (APG12) are simulated using classical molecular dynamics. The bulk phases and the corresponding interfacial regions are all explicitly detailed using an all-atom force field (PCFF+). During the simulation, the behaviour of the interface is analyzed geometrically to obtain an approximated value of the critical micelle concentration (CMC) in terms of the surfactant area number density and the interfacial tension is assessed through the analysis of the forces amongst molecules. New experimental determinations are reported for the surface tension of APG12 at the water/air and at the water/n-decane interfaces. Findings We showcase the application of a thermodynamic framework that inter-relates interfacial tensions, surface densities, CMCs and bulk surfactant concentrations, which allows the in silico quantitative prediction of interfacial tension isotherms.

On the Preparation of Thin Films of Stearyl Methacrylate Directly Photo-polymerized at the Air-Water Interface

Characterization of bidimensional polymeric films at the air-water interface in the Langmuir trough, despite being a recurrent topic, usually refers to films of already formed polymeric materials, with very scarce reports on direct polymerization at the air-water interface. In the present work, we studied the photo-polymerization of stearyl methacrylate directly at the air-water interface under a nitrogen atmosphere, with the radical initiator solubilized in the aqueous phase. Two-dimensional (2D) polymerization was monitored by measuring the pressure-area isotherm at different irradiation times. The polymerization leads to a film with an isotherm different from that observed for the monomer, where the surface pressure is directly related to the irradiation time. The shape of this isotherm confirms the presence of a compressed liquid phase, where a higher order can be attained as a consequence of stronger packing forces involving polymer chains. The presence of inter-chain interactions allows rearrangements on the surface of the subphase, and even before the collapse a dense 2D ordering (with a solid phase-like behavior) can be observed. We present a new one-step, solvent-free procedure to obtain a photo-polymeric film directly at the air-water interface, which can be transferred to a solid surface by the Langmuir-Blodgett method, allowing film preparation of controlled thickness. Films were characterized by measuring properties such as thickness, roughness, and hydrophobicity and comparing them with films obtained from a conventional polymer. We report the differences between the interfacial behavior of amphiphilic molecules and nanomaterials such as films obtained by photo-polymerization, PSMA, directly on the air-water interface.

Exploration of the Adsorption Kinetics of Surfactants at the Water-Oil Interface via Grand-Canonical Molecular Dynamics Simulations

It is well-known that surfactants tend to aggregate into clusters or micelles in aqueous solutions due to their special structures, and it is difficult for the surfactant molecules involved in the aggregation to move spontaneously to the oil-water interface. In this article, we developed a new grand-canonical molecular dynamics (GCMD) model to predict the saturated adsorption amount of surfactant with constant concentration of surfactant molecules in the bulk phase, which can prevent surfactants aggregating in the bulk phase and get the atomic details of the interfacial structural change with increase of the adsorption amount through a single GCMD run. The adsorption of anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) at the heptane-water interface was studied to validate the model. The saturated adsorption amount obtained from the GCMD simulation is consistent with the experimental results. The adsorption kinetics of SDS molecules during the simulation can be divided into three stages: linear adsorption stage, transition adsorption stage, and dynamic equilibrium stage. We also carried out equilibrium molecular dynamics (EMD) simulations to compare with GCMD simulation. This GCMD model can effectively reduce the simulation time with correct prediction of the interfacial saturation adsorption. We believe the GCMD method could be especially helpful for the computational study of surfactant adsorption under complex environments or emulsion systems with the adsorption of multiple types of surfactants.

Multiple Free Energy Calculations from Single State Point Continuous Fractional Component Monte Carlo Simulation Using Umbrella Sampling

We introduce an alternative method to perform free energy calculations for mixtures at multiple temperatures and pressures from a single simulation, by combining umbrella sampling and the continuous fractional component Monte Carlo method. One can perform a simulation of a mixture at a certain pressure and temperature and accurately compute the chemical potential at other pressures and temperatures close to the simulation conditions. This method has the following advantages: (1) Accurate estimates of the chemical potential as a function of pressure and temperature are obtained from a single state simulation without additional postprocessing. This can potentially reduce the number of simulations of a system for free energy calculations for a specific temperature and/or pressure range. (2) Partial molar volumes and enthalpies are obtained directly from the estimated chemical potentials. We tested our method for a Lennard-Jones system, aqueous mixtures of methanol at T = 298 K and P = 1 bar, and a mixture of ammonia, nitrogen, and hydrogen at T = 573 K and P = 800 bar. For pure methanol (N = 410 molecules), we observed that the estimated chemical potentials from umbrella sampling are in excellent agreement with the reference values obtained from independent simulations, for ΔT = ±15 K and ΔP = 100 bar (with respect to the simulated system). For larger systems, this range becomes smaller because the relative fluctuations of energy and volume become smaller. Without sufficient overlap, the performance of the method will become poor especially for nonlinear variations of the chemical potential.

Capturing Structural Transitions in Surfactant Adsorption Isotherms at Solid/Solution Interfaces

Although adsorption isotherms of surfactants are critical in determining the relationship between interfacial properties and structures of surfactants, providing quantitative predictions of the isotherms remains challenging. This is especially true for adsorption at hard interfaces such as on two-dimensional (2D) layered materials or on nanoparticles where simulation techniques developed for fluid-fluid interfaces that dynamically change surface properties by adjusting unit cells do not apply. In this work, we predict nonideal adsorption at a solid-solution interface with a molecular thermodynamic theory (MTT) model that utilizes molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for the determination of free-energy parameters in the MTT. Furthermore, the MD/MTT model provides atomistic insights into the nonideal behavior of surfactants by capturing structural phases of the surfactants at the interface. Our approach captures structural transitions from the ideal state at low concentrations and then to the critical surface aggregation concentration (CSAC) and finally through the critical micelle concentration (CMC). We validate our model against the original MTT model by comparing predicted adsorption isotherms of a simplified surfactant system from both approaches. We further substantiate the applicability of our model in complex systems by providing adsorption isotherms in an aqueous sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-graphene system, in good agreement with the experimental observations of the CSAC for the same system.

Role of Associative Charging in the Entropy-Energy Balance of Polyelectrolyte Complexes

Polyelectrolytes may be classified into two primary categories (strong and weak) depending on how their charge state responds to the local environment. Both of these find use in many applications, including drug delivery, gene therapy, layer-by-layer films, and fabrication of ion filtration membranes. The mechanism of polyelectrolyte complexation is, however, still not completely understood, though experimental investigations suggest that entropy gain due to release of counterions is the key driving force for strong polyelectrolyte complexation. Here we perform a comprehensive thermodynamic investigation through coarse-grained molecular simulations permitting us to calculate the free energy of complex formation. Importantly, our expanded-ensemble methods permit the explicit separation of energetic and entropic contributions to the free energy. Our investigations indicate that entropic contributions indeed dominate the free energy of complex formation for strong polyelectrolytes, but are less important than energetic contributions when weak electrostatic coupling or weak polyelectrolytes are present. Our results provide a new view of the free energy of polyelectrolyte complex formation driven by polymer association, which should also arise in systems with large charge spacings or bulky counterions, both of which act to weaken ion-polymer binding.