Numerical analysis of electroosmotic flow in dense regular and random arrays of impermeable, nonconducting spheres

We present a numerical scheme for analyzing steady-state isothermal electroosmotic flow (EOF) in three-dimensional random porous media, involving solution of the coupled Poisson, Nernst-Planck, and Navier-Stokes equations. While traditional finite-difference methods were used to resolve the Poisson-Nernst-Planck problem, the (electro)hydrodynamics has been addressed with high efficiency using the lattice-Boltzmann method. The developed model allows simulation of electrokinetic transport under most general conditions, including arbitrary value and distribution of electrokinetic potential at the solid-liquid interface, electrolyte composition, and pore space morphology. The approach provides quantitative information on a spatial distribution of simulated velocities. This feature was utilized to characterize EOF fields in regular and random, confined and bulk packings of hard (i.e., impermeable, nonconducting) spheres. Important aspects of pore space morphology (sphere size distribution), surface heterogeneity (mismatch in electrokinetic potentials at confining wall and sphere surface), and fluid phase properties (electrical double layer thickness) were investigated with respect to their influence on the EOF dynamics over microscopic and macroscopic spatial domains. Most important is the observation of a generally nonuniform pore-level EOF velocity profile in the sphere packings (even in the thin double layer limit) which is caused by pore space morphology and which is in contrast to the pluglike velocity distribution in a single, straight capillary under the same conditions.     

VNCl2(Pyridin)2 Synthese,IR-Spektrum und Kristallstruktur

VNCl₂(Pyridine)₂; Synthesis, I. R. Spectrum, and Crystal Structure VNCl₂(Pyridine)₂ is formed from the cyclothiazeno-vanadium(IV) complex [VCl(N₃S₂)(Pyridine)₂]₂ · 2 CH₂Cl₂ in boiling toluene in form of brown-red, hydrolysis sensitive crystal. It was characterized by its I.R. spectrum and an X-ray crystal structure determination. VNCl₂(Pyridine)₂crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pccn with four formula units per unit cell (668 observed independent reflexions, R = 0.055). Lattice constants: a = 1550, b = 924, c = 832 pm. Monomer molecules are situated on twofold rotation axes. They are stacked along the V?N axis to form columns V?N…V. The short VN bond of 160 pm corresponds to a triple bond, whereas the V…N distance of 256 pm indicates a weak interaction. The V? N(Pyridine) and V? Cl bond lengths are 213.0 and 233.5 pm, respectively.     

The s-p bonded representatives of the prominent BaAl4 structure type: a case study on structural stability of polar intermetallic network structures

This work presents a detailed, combined experimental and theoretical study on the structural stability of s-p bonded compounds with the BaAl4 structure type (space group I4/mmm, Z = 2) as part of a broad program to investigate the complex questions of structure formation and atomic arrangements in polar intermetallics. From ab initio calculations employing pseudopotentials and a plane wave basis set, we extracted optimized structural parameters, binding energies, and the electronic structure of the systems AeX(III)4, AeX(II)2X(IV)2, AeX(II)2X(III)2 (Ae = Ca, Sr, Ba; X(II) = Mg, Zn; X(III) = Al, Ga; X(IV) = Si, Ge). For all systems we found a pronounced pseudo-gap in the density of states separating network X42- bonding from antibonding electronic states that coincides with the Fermi level for an electron count of 14 electrons per formula unit, the optimum value for stable BaAl4-type polar intermetallics. However, the synthesis and structural characterization (from X-ray single crystal and powder diffraction data) of the new compounds AeZn2-Al2+, AeZn2-deltaGa2+delta (Ae = Ca, Sr, Ba; delta = 0-0.2) and AeMg0.9Al3.1, AeMg1.7Ga2.3 (Ae = Sr, Ba) manifested that electron deficiency is rather frequent for BaAl4-type polar intermetallics. The site preference for different "X" elements in the ternary systems was quantified by calculating "coloring energies", which, for some systems, was strongly dependent on the size of the electropositive Ae component. The Ae2+ cations decisively influence the nearest neighbor distances in the encapsulating polyanionic networks X4(2-) and the structures of these networks are surprisingly flexible to the size of the Ae component without changing the overall bonding picture. A monoclinically distorted variant of the BaAl4 structure occurs when the cations become too small for matching the size of encapsulating X4(2-) cages. An even larger size mismatch leads to the formation of the EuIn4 structure type.