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Wang S, Tao H, Yang J, Cheng J, Liu H, Lian C. Structure and Screening in Confined Electrolytes: The Role of Ion Association. J Phys Chem Lett 2024; 15:7147-7153. [PMID: 38959446 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c01698] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/05/2024]
Abstract
The effect of ionic association on the structure and property of confined electrolytes is investigated using the classical density functional theory. We find that ionic association strongly affects the ion distribution, surface force, and screening behavior of confined electrolytes. The decay length ξ, which can describe the screening effect of high-concentration electrolytes, satisfies a scaling relationship ξ/λD ∼ (σ/λD)n, with λD being the Debye length and σ representing the ion diameter. We find that n = 1.5 in the nonassociation model, which is contributed by the charge correlation, but n = 3 in the association model, which is contributed by the density correlation. The ion association changes the concentration-dependent characteristics of the screening length by promoting the shift of the decay behavior from the charge-dominated regime to the density-dominated regime. Our result reveals the importance of ion association for electrolyte structure and screening behaviors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sijie Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Haolan Tao
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Jie Yang
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Jin Cheng
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Honglai Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Cheng Lian
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering and School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
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Robertson H, Elliott GR, Nelson ARJ, Le Brun AP, Webber GB, Prescott SW, Craig VSJ, Wanless EJ, Willott JD. Underscreening in concentrated electrolytes: re-entrant swelling in polyelectrolyte brushes. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2023; 25:24770-24782. [PMID: 37671535 DOI: 10.1039/d3cp02206d] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/07/2023]
Abstract
Hypersaline environments are ubiquitous in nature and are found in myriad technological processes. Recent empirical studies have revealed a significant discrepancy between predicted and observed screening lengths at high salt concentrations, a phenomenon referred to as underscreening. Herein we investigate underscreening using a cationic polyelectrolyte brush as an exemplar. Poly(2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl)trimethylammonium (PMETAC) brushes were synthesised and their internal structural changes and swelling response was monitored with neutron reflectometry and spectroscopic ellipsometry. Both techniques revealed a monotonic brush collapse as the concentration of symmetric monovalent electrolyte increased. However, a non-monotonic change in brush thickness was observed in all multivalent electrolytes at higher concentrations, known as re-entrant swelling; indicative of underscreening. For all electrolytes, numerical self-consistent field theory predictions align with experimental studies in the low-to-moderate salt concentration regions. Analysis suggests that the classical theory of electrolytes is insufficient to describe the screening lengths observed at high salt concentrations and that the re-entrant polyelectrolyte brush swelling seen herein is consistent with the so-called regular underscreening phenomenon.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hayden Robertson
- College of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
| | - Gareth R Elliott
- College of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
| | - Andrew R J Nelson
- Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering, ANSTO, Locked Bag 2001, Kirrawee DC, NSW 2232, Australia
| | - Anton P Le Brun
- Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering, ANSTO, Locked Bag 2001, Kirrawee DC, NSW 2232, Australia
| | - Grant B Webber
- College of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
| | - Stuart W Prescott
- School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
| | - Vincent S J Craig
- Department of Materials Physics, Research School of Physics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
| | - Erica J Wanless
- College of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
| | - Joshua D Willott
- College of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
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Yang J, Kondrat S, Lian C, Liu H, Schlaich A, Holm C. Solvent Effects on Structure and Screening in Confined Electrolytes. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2023; 131:118201. [PMID: 37774307 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.131.118201] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2023] [Revised: 07/04/2023] [Accepted: 08/15/2023] [Indexed: 10/01/2023]
Abstract
Using classical density functional theory, we investigate the influence of solvent on the structure and ionic screening of electrolytes under slit confinement and in contact with a reservoir. We consider a symmetric electrolyte with implicit and explicit solvent models and find that spatially resolving solvent molecules is essential for the ion structure at confining walls, excess ion adsorption, and the pressure exerted on the walls. Despite this, we observe only moderate differences in the period of oscillations of the pressure with the slit width and virtually coinciding decay lengths as functions of the scaling variable σ_{ion}/λ_{D}, where σ_{ion} is the ion diameter and λ_{D} the Debye length. Moreover, in the electrostatic-dominated regime, this scaling behavior is practically independent of the relative permittivity and its dependence on the ion concentration. In contrast, the crossover to the hard-core-dominated regime depends sensitively on all three factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jie Yang
- Institute for Computational Physics, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
- School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Svyatoslav Kondrat
- Institute for Computational Physics, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Cheng Lian
- School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Honglai Liu
- School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
| | - Alexander Schlaich
- Institute for Computational Physics, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
- Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science (SC SimTech), University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Christian Holm
- Institute for Computational Physics, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
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Härtel A, Bültmann M, Coupette F. Anomalous Underscreening in the Restricted Primitive Model. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2023; 130:108202. [PMID: 36962045 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.130.108202] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2022] [Revised: 12/19/2022] [Accepted: 02/08/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Underscreening is a collective term for charge correlations in electrolytes decaying slower than the Debye length. Anomalous underscreening refers to phenomenology that cannot be attributed alone to steric interactions. Experiments with concentrated electrolytes and ionic fluids report anomalous underscreening, which so far has not been observed in simulation. We present Molecular Dynamics simulation results exhibiting anomalous underscreening that can be connected to cluster formation. A theory that accounts for ion pairing confirms the trend. Our results challenge the classic understanding of dense electrolytes impacting the design of technologies for energy storage and conversion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Härtel
- Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Moritz Bültmann
- Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Fabian Coupette
- Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
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Patsahan O, Ciach A. Mesoscopic Inhomogeneities in Concentrated Electrolytes. ACS OMEGA 2022; 7:6655-6664. [PMID: 35252660 PMCID: PMC8892908 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.1c06013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/31/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
A mesoscopic theory for water-in-salt electrolytes combining density functional and field-theoretic methods is developed in order to explain the unexpectedly large period of the oscillatory decay of the disjoining pressure observed in recent experiments for the lithium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)-imide (LiTFSI) salt [T. S. Groves et al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2021, 12, 1702]. We assumed spherical ions with different diameters and implicit solvent, inducing strong, short-range attraction between ions of the same sign. For this highly simplified model, we calculated correlation functions. Our results indicate that mesoscopic inhomogeneities can occur when the sum of the Coulomb and the water-mediated interactions between like ions is attractive at short and repulsive at large distances. We adjusted the attractive part of the potential to the water-in-LiTFSI electrolyte and obtained both the period and the decay rate of the correlations, in semiquantitative agreement with the experiment. In particular, the decay length of the correlations increases nearly linearly with the volume fraction of ions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oksana Patsahan
- Institute
for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of
Ukraine, Lviv 79011, Ukraine
| | - Alina Ciach
- Institute
of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of
Sciences, 01-224 Warszawa, Poland
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Abstract
Recent experiments have shown that the repulsive force between atomically flat, like-charged surfaces confining room-temperature ionic liquids or concentrated electrolytes exhibits an anomalously large decay length. In our previous publication [J. Zeman, S. Kondrat, and C. Holm, Chem. Commun. 56, 15635 (2020)], we showed by means of extremely large-scale molecular dynamics simulations that this so-called underscreening effect might not be a feature of bulk electrolytes. Herein, we corroborate these findings by providing additional results with more detailed analyses and expand our investigations to ionic liquids under confinement. Unlike in bulk systems, where screening lengths are computed from the decay of interionic potentials of mean force, we extract such data in confined systems from cumulative charge distributions. At high concentrations, our simulations show increasing screening lengths with increasing electrolyte concentration, consistent with classical liquid state theories. However, our analyses demonstrate that-also for confined systems-there is no anomalously large screening length. As expected, the screening lengths determined for ionic liquids under confinement are in good quantitative agreement with the screening lengths of the same ionic systems in bulk. In addition, we show that some theoretical models used in the literature to relate the measured screening lengths to other observables are inapplicable to highly concentrated electrolytes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johannes Zeman
- Institute for Computational Physics, University of Stuttgart, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Svyatoslav Kondrat
- Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Christian Holm
- Institute for Computational Physics, University of Stuttgart, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
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