Molecular dynamics simulations of the surface tension of ionic liquids

We report molecular dynamics computer simulations of the surface tension and interfacial thickness of ionic liquid-vapor interfaces modeled with a soft core primitive model potential. We find that the surface tension shows an anomalous oscillatory behavior with interfacial area. This observation is discussed in terms of finite size effects introduced by the periodic boundary conditions employed in computer simulations. Otherwise we show that the thickness of the liquid-vapor interface increases with surface area as predicted by the capillary wave theory. Data on the surface tension of size-asymmetric ionic liquids are reported and compared with experimental data of molten salts. Our data suggest that the surface tensions of size-asymmetric ionic liquids do not follow a corresponding states law.     

Molecular dynamics of immiscible fluids in chemically patterned nanochannels

Molecular dynamics simulations of chain molecules are used to elucidate physical phenomena involved in flows of dense immiscible fluids in nanochannels. We first consider a force driven flow in which the channel walls are homogeneous and wetting to one fluid and nonwetting to the other fluid. The coating of the walls by the wetting fluid provides a fluctuating surface that confines the flow of the nonwetting fluid. The resulting dissipation yields stationary Poiseuille-like flows in contrast to the accelerating nature of flow in the absence of the coating. We then consider walls consisting of patches whose wetting preferences to a fluid alternate along the walls. In the resulting flow, the immiscible components exhibit periodic structures in their velocity fields such that the crests are located at the wettability steps in contrast to the behavior of a single fluid for which the crest occurs in the wetting region. We demonstrate that for a single fluid, the modulated velocity field scales with the size of the chain molecules.     

Molecular dynamics simulation of the density and surface tension of water by particle-particle particle-mesh method

In this work, molecular dynamics simulation is performed to study the density and surface tension of water for a range of temperatures from 300 to 600 K. The extended simple point charge interaction potential for water is used. The particle-particle particle-mesh method, which automatically includes untruncated long-range terms, is used for the Lennard-Jones and the Coulombic terms. The results show that the long-range correction for the Lennard-Jones term is very important for the calculation of surface tension. It is found that the calculated density and surface tension of water fit well with experimental data for temperatures less than 500 K. Near the critical temperature, the simulation results are off from the experimental data.     

Molecular dynamics study to identify the reactive sites of a liquid squalane surface

Molecular dynamics simulations of liquid squalane, C30H62, were performed, focusing in particular on the liquid-vacuum interface. These theoretical studies were aimed at identifying potentially reactive sites on the surface, knowledge of which is important for a number of inelastic and reactive scattering experiments. A united atom force field (Martin, M. G.; Siepmann, J. I. J. Phys. Chem. B 1999, 103, 4508-4517) was used, and the simulations were analyzed with respect to their interfacial properties. A modest but clearly identifiable preference for methyl groups to protrude into the vacuum has been found at lower temperatures. This effect decreases when going to higher temperatures. Additional simulations tracking the flight paths of projectiles directed at a number of randomly chosen surfaces extracted from the molecular dynamics simulations were performed. The geometrical parameters for these calculations were chosen to imitate a typical abstraction reaction, such as the reaction between ground-state oxygen atoms and hydrocarbons. Despite the preference for methyl groups to protrude further into the vacuum, Monte Carlo tracking simulations suggest, on geometric grounds, that primary and secondary hydrogen atoms are roughly equally likely to react with incoming gas-phase atoms. These geometric simulations also indicate that a substantial fraction of the scattered products is likely to undergo at least one secondary collision with hydrocarbon side chains. These results help to interpret the outcome of previous measurements of the internal and external energy distribution of the gas-phase OH products of the interfacial reaction between oxygen atoms and liquid squalane.     

Molecular dynamics determination of the surface tension of silver-gold liquid alloys and the Tolman length of nanoalloys

Using molecular dynamics simulations, an embedded-atom model potential, and the mechanistic route, we have computed the pressure tensor and the surface tension γ of Ag-Au liquid alloys. Although the model generally underestimates γ for pure metals, calculations for a bulk planar slab exhibit nonlinear variations of γ with increasing gold concentration, which agree with experiments and can be accounted for by a perfect solution model. Calculations for various nanoscale droplets containing between 100 and 3200 atoms show a systematic decrease of γ with increasing droplet radius R. The positive Tolman length of the alloy determined from these size variations is estimated to vary slightly with gold concentration. The effects of temperature in the range 1300-1700 K are discussed.     

Vapor-liquid surface tension of strong short-range Yukawa fluid

The thermodynamic properties of strong short-range attractive Yukawa fluids, κ = 10, 9, 8, and 7, are determined by combining the slab technique with the standard and the replica exchange Monte Carlo (REMC) methods. A good agreement was found among the coexistence curves of these systems calculated by REMC and those previously reported in the literature. However, REMC allows exploring the coexistence at lower temperatures, where dynamics turns glassy. To obtain the surface tension we employed, for both methods, a procedure that yields the pressure tensor components for discontinuous potentials. The surface tension results obtained by the standard MC and REMC techniques are in good agreement.     

Thin-thick surface phase coexistence and boundary tension of the square-well fluid on a weak attractive surface

Prewetting transition is studied for the square-well fluid of attractive-well diameter lambda(ff)sigma(ff)=1.5 in the presence of a homogeneous surface modeled by the square-well potential of attractive well from 0.8sigma(ff) to 1.8sigma(ff). We investigate surface phase coexistence of thin-thick film transition using grand-canonical transition matrix Monte Carlo (GC-TMMC) and histogram reweighting techniques. Molecular dynamics (MD) and GC-TMMC are utilized to predict the properties of the fluid for various surface fluid affinities. Occurrences of prewetting transition with the variation of surface affinity are observed for a domain of reduced temperature from T(*)=0.62 to 0.75. We have used MD and GC-TMMC+finite size scaling (FSS) simulations to calculate the boundary tension as a function of temperature as well as surface affinity. Boundary tensions via MD and GC-TMMC+FSS methods are in good agreement. The boundary tension increases with the decrease of wall-fluid affinity. Prewetting critical properties are calculated using rectilinear diameter approach and scaling analysis. We found that critical temperature and density increase with the decrease of wall-fluid affinity.     

Molecular dynamics simulations on the adsorption and surface phenomena of simple fluid in porous media

Equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations have been used to investigate the fluid adsorption phenomena and calculate the surface tension in porous media at different temperatures, densities and pore widths. The facts that most of the fluid particles are adsorbed adherent to the pore walls and the surface forms near the walls have been found, and that the surface is not stable which means there exists an oscillation phenomenon in pores have been also found. The surface tension in pores is much bigger than that in macrovolume systems like normal liquid–liquid and liquid–vapor interfaces, and it will increase with the increase of density and pore width, but will decrease with the increase of temperature.     

Welding immiscible polymers with a supercritical fluid

Polymer adhesion between two immiscible polymers is usually poor because there is little interpenetration of one polymer into the other at the interface. Increasing the width of the interfacial zone can enhance adhesion and mechanical properties. In principle, this can be accomplished by exposing heterogeneous polymer materials to a high-pressure fluid. The fluid can act as a common solvent and promote interpenetration. It also increases chain mobility at the interface, which helps to promote "welding" of the two polymers. A combination of the gradient theory of inhomogeneous systems and the Sanchez-Lacombe equation of state was used to investigate this phenomenon, especially the effect of the high compressibility of supercritical (SC) fluid on the compatibilization of two incompatible polymers. We calculate the interfacial density profile, interfacial thickness, and interfacial tension between the two polymers with and without the SC fluid. We find that the interfacial tension is decreased and the interfacial thickness is increased with high-pressure SC fluid for the ternary systems we have investigated. As the critical point is approached and the SC compressibility becomes large, no enhancement or deleterious effects on compatibilization were observed.     

Study of surface tension and surface properties of binary alcohol/n-alkyl acetate mixtures

The Butler equation is employed to describe quantitatively the nature, properties, and compositions of surface layers in binary liquid mixtures. Bulk mole fraction, surface molar area, and surface tension of pure components are necessary inputs for this equation. In addition, the UNIFAC group contribution method is applied to account for the nonideality of the bulk liquid as well as that of the surface layer. The average relative error obtained from the comparison of experimental and calculated surface tension values for 12 binary systems is less than 1%. Therefore, the model has good accuracy in comparison with other predictive equations. In addition to finding more information about the surface structure of binary mixtures, surface mole fraction was calculated using relative Gibbs adsorption values and an extended Langmuir model (EL). The obtained results show a good consistency between two models employed, i.e., the Gibbs adsorption model and EL model, based on the UNIFAC method.     

纳米镍团簇表面性质及能量的分子动力学研究

在单分散金属纳米粒子制备过程中,金属烧结现象需要尽量避免。烧结与诸多因素有关,其中金属纳米粒子的表面性质和能量对烧结作用有着重要影响。本工作利用分子动力学,以4种不同粒径的金属Ni纳米团簇为研究对象,在COMPASS力场下对不同温度下其表面积、扩散性质、表面能以及比表面能等进行了计算。结果显示,随着温度从300K升至1000K,纳米团簇的表面积稍微增加了约5%,表面层扩散系数显著增加了约3个数量级,表面能量升高了约15%,同时表面层与体相的能量差明显增加了近3倍。比表面能定义为增加单位表面积所引起的表面能的增量。计算结果表明,700K时团簇的比表面能比镍熔点处的表面张力高出约3个数量级,预示着团簇烧结具有强大的推动力。比表面能随温度升高以及粒径增大而下降,与热力学原理相一致。     

Non-monotonic behaviour with concentration of the surface tension of certain binary liquid alloys

The surface tension σ(c) of most liquid binary alloys usually varies with concentration c in a monotonic way between the values σ₁ and σ₂ of the two pure metals, and this behaviour is well explained by current models. Some alloys show deviations from this ideal behaviour. One of those is Fe–B. The surface tension of this liquid alloy shows a minimum at 17 atomic % B, which corresponds well with the composition of the eutectic point in the phase diagram, followed by a maximum at a concentration of 24 atomic % B or higher. The usual models for the surface tension of liquid binary alloys do not explain those exceptional features, and we propose that a model involving the concentration fluctuations in the liquid alloy has the proper ingredients to account for the features in Fe–B and similar alloys.     

Determination of surface tension in binary mixtures using transition-matrix Monte Carlo

We present a methodology based on grand-canonical transition-matrix Monte Carlo and finite-size scaling analysis to calculate surface tensions in binary mixtures. In particular, mixture transition-matrix Monte Carlo is first used to calculate apparent, system-size-dependent free-energy barriers separating coexisting fluid phases. Finite-size scaling is then used to extrapolate these values to the infinitely large system limit to determine the true thermodynamic surface tension. A key distinction of the methodology is that it yields the entire isothermal surface-tension curve for a binary mixture in a relatively small number of simulations. We demonstrate the utility of the method by calculating surface-tension curves for three binary Lennard-Jones mixtures. While we have only examined the surface tension of simple fluids in this work, the method is general and can be extended to molecular fluids as well as to determine interfacial tensions of liquid-liquid interfaces.     

Correlation between topological features and surface tension of binary liquid mixtures

Summary The excess surface tension of a large number of binary liquid mixtures has been correlated with their topological features quantified in terms of the molecular connectivity indices. The agreement between the calculated and experimental ^E values is reasonably well for all the mixtures. A simple correlation has also been proposed between ^E and molar excess volume (V ^E ) of a binary mixture. The correlation is quite useful in correlating ^E data even for the mixtures where either one or both the components are associated in the pure state and/or there is interaction between them.

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Korrelation zwischen topologischen Gegebenheiten und Oberflächenspannung von binären flüssigen Mischungen

Zusammenfassung Die Exzeß-Oberflächenspannungen einer großen Anzahl von binären flüssigen Mischungen wurden mit der Topologie ihrer Komponenten in Form der molekularen Konnektivitätsindices korreliert. Die Übereinstimmung zwischen den ^E -Werten ist für alle Mischungen relativ gut. Es wurde ebenfalls eine einfache Korrelation zwischen ^E und den molaren Exzeß-Volumina (V ^E ) der binären Mischungen vorgeschlagen. Diese Korrelierung ist nützlich, um die ^E -Werte sogar dann für die Korrelation von Mischungen verwenden zu können, wenn entweder eine oder beide Komponenten im Reinzustand assoziiert sind und/oder eine Wechselwirkung zwischen ihnen besteht.

     

Molecular dynamics simulation of the structural configuration of binary colloidal monolayers

Molecular dynamics simulations of binary colloidal monolayers, i.e., monolayers consisting of mixtures of two different particle sizes, are presented. In the simulations, the colloid particles are located at an oil-water interface and interact via an effective dipole-dipole potential. In particular, the influence of the particle ratio on the configurations of the binary monolayers is investigated for two different relative interaction strengths between the particles, and the pair correlation functions corresponding to the binary monolayers are calculated. The simulations show that the binary monolayers can only form two-dimensional crystals for certain particle ratios, for example, 2:1, 6:1, etc., while, for example, for a particle ratio of 7:1 the monolayers are found to be in a disordered, glassy state. The calculations also reveal that in analogy to the Wigner lattice the configurations are very sensitive to the relative interaction strength between the particles but not to the absolute magnitude of the interaction strength, even when particle size effects are taken into account. Consequently, it is argued that a comparison between the calculated configurations and actual binary particle monolayer systems could provide useful information on the relative interaction strength between large and small particles. Possible mechanisms giving rise to disparities in the interaction strength between large and small particles are described briefly.     

Molecular dynamics study of structural and thermodynamic characteristics of nanodroplets of simple fluid

Equilibrium configurations of Lennard-Jones nanodroplets composed of 10–15000 spherically symmetric molecules placed in the center of a spherical container are studied at constant temperature by the molecular dynamics method. The distribution of local density is found and size dependences of density in the center of droplet, first coordination number, and energy surface tension coinciding for equimolecular dividing surface with specific excess free energy of droplet are studied. Radial distribution function is also determined. It is established that the passage of structural characteristics to their macroscopic values is observed for droplets containing as little as about 300 molecules, while, for energy surface tension, analogous passage for energy surface tension occurs for droplets containing 700–6000 molecules.     

A study of the refractive index and surface tension synergy of the binary water/ethanol: influence of concentration

Pure alcohols or alcohols mixed with water are the most widely used solvents in a great variety of industrial applications, including the formulation of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. As a result of water/alcohol molecular associations, variations result in the physico-chemical characteristics of the system, such as density, viscosity, refractive index and surface tension.

The present study investigates the refractive index and the surface tension of ethanol and water mixtures at a temperature of 25°C, for different molar fractions. The data obtained allow us to study the corresponding refractive index and the surface tension synergies; in this sense, an absolute maximum refractive index is recorded for a molar fraction of 0.667, while maximum synergy (both absolute and relative) is observed for a molar fraction 0.333.

As regards surface tension, minimum absolute and relative synergy is recorded for molar fraction 0.2, since synergy is negative for the surface tensions of the mixtures.

Determinations are also made of the molar refraction of the mixtures and of the variation in refractive indices with temperature.     

Molecular dynamics investigation of bent-core molecules on a water surface

Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out for bent-core molecules at water surfaces. The water surface is shown to alter the equilibrium molecular structure significantly by causing a different class of torsional states to become more favorable. The equilibrium structure is also altered by the substitution of chlorine atoms for hydrogen atoms on the central phenyl ring in that this substitution forces the bent core to remain in a single torsional state rather than be delocalized among several torsional states. The consequences of these structural changes on the chirality and packing of these molecules on water surfaces are discussed.     

Molecular dynamics simulation study on adsorption and diffusion processes of a hydrophilic chain on a hydrophobic surface

Molecular dynamics simulations are applied to investigate the adsorption and diffusion processes of a single hydrophilic poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) chain with different chain lengths on a hydrophobic graphite surface. It is expected that the chain and the surface "dislike" each other because one is hydrophilic and the other is hydrophobic. But surprisingly, a short PVA chain is well adsorbed on the surface, accompanied by large changes in the chain configuration. With increasing degree of polymerization (N), the chain turns gradually from two-dimensional adsorption to possessing certain height in the direction perpendicular to the surface. Moreover, the adsorption energy increases and the diffusion coefficient decreases with increasing N. In particular, for N = 20 in equilibrium, the hydroxyls of this short chain are close to the graphite surface in the stable adsorption configuration. In addition, we change the effective dielectric constant to 76.0 to mimic good solvent condition. The chain configurations and the diffusion coefficients both vary in contrast to the foregoing results.