Monte Carlo simulation of the nonadditive restricted primitive model of ionic fluids: phase diagram and clustering

The primitive model in classical density functional theory: beyond the standard mean-field approximation

The primitive model describes ions by point charges with an additional hard-core interaction. In classical density-functional theory (DFT) the mean-field electrostatic contribution can be obtained from the first order of a functional perturbation of the pair potential for an uncharged reference system of hard spheres. This mean-field electrostatic term particularly contributes at particle separations that are forbidden due to hard-core overlap. In this work we modify the mean-field contribution such that the pair potential is constant for distances smaller than the contact distance of the ions. We motivate our modification by the underlying splitting of the potential, which is similar to the splitting of the Weeks-Chandler-Andersen potential and leads to higher-order terms in the respective expansion of the functional around the reference system. The resulting formalism involves weighted densities similar to the ones found in fundamental measure theory. To test our modifications, we analyze and compare density profiles, direct and total correlation functions, and the thermodynamic consistency of the functional via a widely established sum rule and the virial pressure formula for our modified functional, for established functionals, and for data from computer simulations. We found that our modifications clearly show improvements compared to the standard mean-field functional, especially when predicting layering effects and direct correlation functions in high concentration scenarios; for the latter we also find improved consistency when calculated via different thermodynamic routes. In conclusion, we demonstrate how modifications toward higher order corrections beyond mean-field functionals can be made and how they perform, by this providing a basis for systematic future improvements in classical DFT for the description of electrostatic interactions.

Observation of Microheterogeneity in Highly Concentrated Nonaqueous Electrolyte Solutions

The development of models to describe structure and dynamics of nonaqueous electrolyte solutions is challenging, and experimental observations are needed to form a foundation. Here, neutron scattering is used to probe molecular dynamics in nonaqueous organic electrolytes. Two solutions were compared: one contained symmetrical electrolyte molecules prone to crystallize, and one contained desymmetrized electrolyte molecules preferring disordered states. For the latter, calorimetry and neutron data show that a disordered fluid persists to very low temperatures at high concentrations. Upon heating, localized cold crystallization occurs, leading to burst nucleation of microcrystalline solids within fluid phases. Our findings indicate molecular clustering and point to solvation inhomogeneities and molecular crowding in these concentrated fluids.

Structure of electric double layers in capacitive systems and to what extent (classical) density functional theory describes it

Ongoing scientific interest is aimed at the properties and structure of electric double layers (EDLs), which are crucial for capacitive energy storage, water treatment, and energy harvesting technologies like supercapacitors, desalination devices, blue engines, and thermocapacitive heat-to-current converters. A promising tool to describe their physics on a microscopic level is (classical) density functional theory (DFT), which can be applied in order to analyze pair correlations and charge ordering in the primitive model of charged hard spheres. This simple model captures the main properties of ionic liquids and solutions and it predicts many of the phenomena that occur in EDLs. The latter often lead to anomalous response in the differential capacitance of EDLs. This work constructively reviews the powerful theoretical framework of DFT and its recent developments regarding the description of EDLs. It explains to what extent current approaches in DFT describe structural ordering and in-plane transitions in EDLs, which occur when the corresponding electrodes are charged. Further, the review briefly summarizes the history of modeling EDLs, presents applications, and points out limitations and strengths in present theoretical approaches. It concludes that DFT as a sophisticated microscopic theory for ionic systems is expecting a challenging but promising future in both fundamental research and applications in supercapacitive technologies.

Quantum Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo

We present a path integral Monte Carlo method which is the full quantum analogue of the Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo method of Panagiotopoulos to study the gas-liquid coexistence line of a classical fluid. Unlike previous extensions of Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo to include quantum effects, our scheme is viable even for systems with strong quantum delocalization in the degenerate regime of temperature. This is demonstrated by an illustrative application to the gas-superfluid transition of (4)He in two dimensions.

Gas-liquid coexistence for the boson square-well fluid and the (4)He binodal anomaly

The binodal of a boson square-well fluid is determined as a function of the particle mass through a quantum Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo algorithm devised by R. Fantoni and S. Moroni [J. Chem. Phys. (to be published)]. In the infinite mass limit we recover the classical result. As the particle mass decreases, the gas-liquid critical point moves at lower temperatures. We explicitly study the case of a quantum delocalization de Boer parameter close to the one of (4)He. For comparison, we also determine the gas-liquid coexistence curve of (4)He for which we are able to observe the binodal anomaly below the λ-transition temperature.