An NMR study on the mechanisms of freezing and melting of water confined in spherically mesoporous silicas SBA-16

Unexpected structural/motional mode of water intercalated into an α-crystalline zirconium phosphate deduced by 31 P and 2 H solid-state MAS NMR spectra

In developing the approach to understanding dynamics of intercalates in layered materials, crystalline-layered zirconium phosphate Zr (HPO₄ )₂ ·0.35D₂ O has been prepared and characterized by the ¹ H, ³¹ P, and ² H solid-state MAS NMR spectra, including ³¹ P and ² H T₁ measurements. At temperatures >253 K, the intercalated water shows two spectrally-distinguished deuterons unprecedentedly with different DQCC's and ² H T₁ times, one of which is hydrogen bonded. The collected data allowed to identify an unexpected bonding/dynamic mode of water molecules, which experience fast rotation around the hydrogen bond, formed with a zirconium-coordinated oxygen. The low-temperature ² H MAS NMR experiments have demonstrated the presence of additional hydrogen bond P(H)O˙˙˙ DO, population of which grows on cooling to 195 K corresponding to the doubly hydrogen-bonded immobile water molecule.

Dynamics and Glass Transition of Supercooled Water Confined in Amphiphilic Polymer Films

The glass transition of supercooled water is not well understood yet. We have observed a clear glass transition of the supercooled water confined in channel of amphiphilic polymer films at 145 K. Using NMR, we probe two types of relaxations occurred in the glass former, e.g., a rapid local β-process and a slow α-process (most likely). It is found that slow α-relaxation follows the Arrhenius relationship, indicating the glass former is a strong liquid. We also find a dynamic crossover from low-temperature Arrhenius α-process to high-temperature VFT process at 198-208 K, accompanying with simultaneous disappearing of local β-relaxation.

Small Molecules, Non-Covalent Interactions, and Confinement

This review gives an overview of current trends in the investigation of small guest molecules, confined in neat and functionalized mesoporous silica materials by a combination of solid-state NMR and relaxometry with other physico-chemical techniques. The reported guest molecules are water, small alcohols, and carbonic acids, small aromatic and heteroaromatic molecules, ionic liquids, and surfactants. They are taken as characteristic role-models, which are representatives for the typical classes of organic molecules. It is shown that this combination delivers unique insights into the structure, arrangement, dynamics, guest-host interactions, and the binding sites in these confined systems, and is probably the most powerful analytical technique to probe these systems.

Ice formation and solvent nanoconfinement in protein crystals

Ice formation within protein crystals is a major obstacle to the cryocrystallographic study of protein structure, and has limited studies of how the structural ensemble of a protein evolves with temperature in the biophysically interesting range from ∼260 K to the protein-solvent glass transition near 200 K. Using protein crystals with solvent cavities as large as ∼70 Å, time-resolved X-ray diffraction was used to study the response of protein and internal solvent during rapid cooling. Solvent nanoconfinement suppresses freezing temperatures and ice-nucleation rates so that ice-free, low-mosaicity diffraction data can be reliably collected down to 200 K without the use of cryoprotectants. Hexagonal ice (Ih) forms in external solvent, but internal crystal solvent forms stacking-disordered ice (Isd) with a near-random stacking of cubic and hexagonal planes. Analysis of powder diffraction from internal ice and single-crystal diffraction from the host protein structure shows that the maximum crystallizable solvent fraction decreases with decreasing crystal solvent-cavity size, and that an ∼6 Å thick layer of solvent adjacent to the protein surface cannot crystallize. These results establish protein crystals as excellent model systems for the study of nanoconfined solvent. By combining fast cooling, intense X-ray beams and fast X-ray detectors, complete structural data sets for high-value targets, including membrane proteins and large complexes, may be collected at ∼220-240 K that have much lower mosaicities and comparable B factors, and that may allow more confident identification of ligand binding than in current cryocrystallographic practice.

A neutron spin echo study of low-temperature water confined in the spherical silica pores of SBA-16

The dynamic properties of heavy water (D₂O) and light water (H₂O) confined in porous silica SBA-16 were studied over a temperature range of 210–290 K by neutron spin echo measurements.