Electron dynamics in charge-transfer-to-solvent states of aqueous chloride revealed by Cl- 2p resonant Auger-electron spectroscopy

Core and Valence Level Photoelectron Spectroscopy of Nanosolvated KCl

The solvation of alkali and halide ions in the aqueous environment has been a subject of intense experimental and theoretical research with multidisciplinary interests; yet, a comprehensive molecular-level understanding has still not been obtained. In recent years, electron spectroscopy has been increasingly applied to study the electronic and structural properties of aqueous ions with implications, especially in atmospheric chemistry. In this work, we report core and valence level (Cl 2p, Cl 3p, and K 3p) photoelectron spectra of the common alkali halide, KCl, doped in gas-phase water clusters in the size range of a few hundred water molecules. The results indicate that the electronic structure of these nanosolutions shows a distinct character from that observed at the liquid-vapor interface in liquid microjets and ambient pressure setups. Insights are provided into the unique solvation properties of ions in a nanoaqueous environment, emerging properties of bulk electrolyte solutions with growing cluster size, and sensitivity of the electronic structure to varying solvation configurations.

Low-energy constraints on photoelectron spectra measured from liquid water and aqueous solutions

We report on the effects of electron collision and indirect ionization processes, occurring at photoexcitation and electron kinetic energies well below 30 eV, on the photoemission spectra of liquid water. We show that the nascent photoelectron spectrum and, hence, the inferred electron binding energy can only be accurately determined if electron energies are large enough that cross sections for quasi-elastic scattering processes, such as vibrational excitation, are negligible. Otherwise, quasi-elastic scattering leads to strong, down-to-few-meV kinetic energy scattering losses from the direct photoelectron features, which manifest in severely distorted intrinsic photoelectron peak shapes. The associated cross-over point from predominant (known) electronically inelastic to quasi-elastic scattering seems to arise at surprisingly large electron kinetic energies, of approximately 10-14 eV. Concomitantly, we present evidence for the onset of indirect, autoionization phenomena (occurring via superexcited states) within a few eV of the primary and secondary ionization thresholds. These processes are inferred to compete with the direct ionization channels and primarily produce low-energy photoelectrons at photon and electron impact excitation energies below ∼15 eV. Our results highlight that vibrational inelastic electron scattering processes and neutral photoexcitation and autoionization channels become increasingly important when photon and electron kinetic energies are decreased towards the ionization threshold. Correspondingly, we show that for neat water and aqueous solutions, great care must be taken when quantitatively analyzing photoelectron spectra measured too close to the ionization threshold. Such care is essential for the accurate determination of solvent and solute ionization energies as well as photoelectron branching ratios and peak magnitudes.

Ambient pressure mapping of resonant Auger spectroscopy at BL02B01 at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility

During the past few decades, resonant Auger spectroscopy (RAS) has presented some advantages in elucidating the electronic structure of free molecules, liquids, and solids. To further extend the application of RAS in complex in situ environments, the ambient pressure system should be developed to characterize the gas-solid and liquid-solid interfaces. In this paper, we describe the design and performance of an ambient pressure mapping of resonant Auger spectroscopy (mRAS) system newly developed at BL02B01 at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility. This system is unique in that the ambient pressure soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy (sXAS) can be measured in Auger electron yield with kinetic energy (KE) resolved. We can obtain a mapping of the resonant Auger spectroscopy (mRAS) in the near ambient pressure environment. This approach provides an additional dimension of information along the KE of Auger electrons to reveal details of the valence and unoccupied states at the vicinity of the absorption edge. Complementary to the photoemission spectroscopy that probes the core levels, in situ two-dimension mRAS characterization is useful in studying the electronic structure of complex interfaces of gas-solid and liquid-solid under realistic operating conditions. We herein present the in situ oxidation of Cu(111) in the ambient oxygen environment as demonstration of the mRAS capability. Specifically, resolving the Auger features gives valuable clues to the molecular level understanding of chemical bonding and the evolution of orbital hybridization. In addition, the mRAS results of spatial resolution and mbar range gas pressure are shown and discussed.

Electron spectroscopy of ionic liquids: experimental identification of atomic orbital contributions to valence electronic structure

The atomic contributions to valence electronic structure for 37 ionic liquids (ILs) are identified using a combination of variable photon energy XPS, resonant Auger electron spectroscopy (RAES) and a subtraction method. The ILs studied include a diverse range of cationic and anionic structural moieties. We introduce a new parameter for ILs, the energy difference between the energies of the cationic and anionic highest occupied fragment orbitals (HOFOs), which we use to identify the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). The anion gave rise to the HOMO for 25 of the 37 ILs studied here. For 10 of the ILs, the energies of the cationic and anionic HOFOs were the same (within experimental error); therefore, it could not be determined whether the HOMO was from the cation or the anion. For two of the ILs, the HOMO was from the cation and not from the anion; consequently it is energetically more favourable to remove an electron from the cation than the anion for these two ILs. In addition, we used a combination of area normalisation and subtraction of XP spectra to produce what are effectively XP spectra for individual ions; this was achieved for 10 cations and 14 anions.

Cationic and Anionic Impact on the Electronic Structure of Liquid Water

Hydration shells around ions are crucial for many fundamental biological and chemical processes. Their local physicochemical properties are quite different from those of bulk water and hard to probe experimentally. We address this problem by combining soft X-ray spectroscopy using a liquid jet and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations together with ab initio electronic structure calculations to elucidate the water-ion interaction in a MgCl₂ solution at the molecular level. Our results reveal that salt ions mainly affect the electronic properties of water molecules in close vicinity and that the oxygen K-edge X-ray emission spectrum of water molecules in the first solvation shell differs significantly from that of bulk water. Ion-specific effects are identified by fingerprint features in the water X-ray emission spectra. While Mg²⁺ ions cause a bathochromic shift of the water lone pair orbital, the 3p orbital of the Cl^- ions causes an additional peak in the water emission spectrum at around 528 eV.

Investigation of the Ionic Hydration in Aqueous Salt Solutions by Soft X-ray Emission Spectroscopy

Understanding the molecular structure of the hydration shells and their impact on the hydrogen bond (HB) network of water in aqueous salt solutions is a fundamentally important and technically relevant question. In the present work, such hydration effects were studied for a series of representative salt solutions (NaCl, KCl, CaCl2, MgCl2, and KBr) by soft X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and resonant inelastic soft X-ray scattering (RIXS). The oxygen K-edge XES spectra could be described with three components, attributed to initial state HB configurations in pure water, water molecules that have undergone an ultrafast dissociation initiated by the X-ray excitation, and water molecules in contact with salt ions. The behavior of the individual components, as well as the spectral shape of the latter component, has been analyzed in detail. In view of the role of ions in such effects as protein denaturation (i.e., the Hofmeister series), we discuss the ion-specific nature of the hydration shells and find that the results point to a predominant role of anions as compared to cations. Furthermore, we observe a concentration-dependent suppression of ultrafast dissociation in all salt solutions, associated with a significant distortion of intact HB configurations of water molecules facilitating such a dissociation.

Photoelectron Spectra of Aqueous Solutions from First Principles

We present a combined computational and experimental study of the photoelectron spectrum of a simple aqueous solution of NaCl. Measurements were conducted on microjets, and first-principles calculations were performed using hybrid functionals and many-body perturbation theory at the G0W0 level, starting with wave functions computed in ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. We show excellent agreement between theory and experiments for the positions of both the solute and solvent excitation energies on an absolute energy scale and for peak intensities. The best comparison was obtained using wave functions obtained with dielectric-dependent self-consistent and range-separated hybrid functionals. Our computational protocol opens the way to accurate, predictive calculations of the electronic properties of electrolytes, of interest to a variety of energy problems.

Charge transfer to solvent dynamics in iodide aqueous solution studied at ionization threshold

The population of charge-transfer-to-solvent states in iodide aqueous solution can undergo via non-resonant multiphoton electronic excitation above the vacuum level.

Comment on “Charge transfer to solvent dynamics in iodide aqueous solution studied at ionization threshold” by A. Kothe, M. Wilke, A. Moguilevski, N. Engel, B. Winter, I. Y. Kiyan and E. F. Aziz, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2015, , 1918

We critically discuss recent results about CTTS dynamics in aqueous iodide solution.

Reply to the ‘Comment on “Charge Transfer to Solvent Dynamics in Iodide Aqueous Solution Studied at Ionization Threshold”’ by A. Lübcke and H.-H. Ritze, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2015, , DOI: 10.1039/C5CP00346F

Following multiphoton excitation above the vacuum threshold, the charge transfer dynamics involves the population of a transient intermediate state, |t〉.

Ion-Solvation-Induced Molecular Reorganization in Liquid Water Probed by Resonant Inelastic Soft X-ray Scattering

The molecular structure of liquid water is susceptible to changes upon admixture of salts due to ionic solvation, which provides the basis of many chemical and biochemical processes. Here we demonstrate how the local electronic structure of aqueous potassium chloride (KCl) solutions can be studied by resonant inelastic soft X-ray scattering (RIXS) to monitor the effects of the ion solvation on the hydrogen-bond (HB) network of liquid water. Significant changes in the oxygen K-edge emission spectra are observed with increasing KCl concentration. These changes can be attributed to modifications in the proton dynamics, caused by a specific coordination structure around the salt ions. Analysis of the spectator decay spectra reveals a spectral signature that could be characteristic of this structure.

Large variations in the propensity of aqueous oxychlorine anions for the solution/vapor interface

Core-level photoelectron spectroscopy measurements have been performed of aqueous solutions of NaCl codissolved with NaClO(n) (n=1-4). Each species has a distinct Cl 2p electron binding energy, which can be exploited for depth-profiling experiments to study the competition between Cl(-) and ClO(n)(-) anions for residing in the outermost layers of the solution/vapor interface. Strongest propensity for the surface is observed for n=4 (perchlorate), followed by n=3 (chlorate), n=2 (chlorite), n=0 (chloride), and n=1 (hypochlorite). Molecular dynamics simulations rationalize the greatest surface propensity of the most oxidized anions in terms of their larger size and polarizability. The anomalous behavior of hypochlorite, being less surface-active than chloride, although it is both larger and more polarizable, is suggested to arise from the charge asymmetry over the anion, increasing its efficiency for bulk solvation.

Windowless microfluidic platform based on capillary burst valves for high intensity x-ray measurements

We propose and describe a microfluidic system for high intensity x-ray measurements. The required open access to a microfluidic channel is provided by an out-of-plane capillary burst valve (CBV). The functionality of the out-of-plane CBV is characterized with respect to the diameter of the windowless access hole, ranging from 10 to 130 microm. Maximum driving pressures from 22 to 280 mbar corresponding to refresh rates of the exposed sample from 300 Hz to 54 kHz is demonstrated. The microfluidic system is tested at beamline ID09b at the ESRF synchrotron radiation facility in Grenoble, and x-ray scattering measurements are shown to be feasible and to require only very limited amounts of sample, <1 ml/h of measurements without recapturing of sample. With small adjustments of the present chip design, scattering angles up to 30 degrees can be achieved without shadowing effects and integration on-chip mixing and spectroscopy appears straightforward.

Auger electron spectroscopy as a probe of the solution of aqueous ions

Aqueous potassium chloride has been studied by synchrotron-radiation excited core-level photoelectron and Auger electron spectroscopy. In the Auger spectrum of the potassium ion, the main feature comprises the final states where two outer valence holes are localized on potassium. This spectrum exhibits also another feature at a higher kinetic energy which is related to final states where outer valence holes reside on different subunits. Through ab initio calculations for microsolvated clusters, these subunits have been assigned as potassium ions and the surrounding water molecules. The situation is more complicated in the Auger spectrum of the chloride anion. One-center and multicenter final states are present here as well but overlap energetically.