Free-energy calculations of elemental sulphur crystals via molecular dynamics simulations

Atomic-scale regulation of anionic and cationic migration in alkali metal batteries

The regulation of anions and cations at the atomic scale is of great significance in membrane-based separation technologies. Ionic transport regulation techniques could also play a crucial role in developing high-performance alkali metal batteries such as alkali metal-sulfur and alkali metal-selenium batteries, which suffer from the non-uniform transport of alkali metal ions (e.g., Li+ or Na+) and detrimental shuttling effect of polysulfide/polyselenide anions. These drawbacks could cause unfavourable growth of alkali metal depositions at the metal electrode and irreversible consumption of cathode active materials, leading to capacity decay and short cycling life. Herein, we propose the use of a polypropylene separator coated with negatively charged Ti0.87O2 nanosheets with Ti atomic vacancies to tackle these issues. In particular, we demonstrate that the electrostatic interactions between the negatively charged Ti0.87O2 nanosheets and polysulfide/polyselenide anions reduce the shuttling effect. Moreover, the Ti0.87O2-coated separator regulates the migration of alkali ions ensuring a homogeneous ion flux and the Ti vacancies, acting as sub-nanometric pores, promote fast alkali-ion diffusion.

Effective potentials and electrostatic interactions in self-assembled molecular bilayers II: The case of biological membranes

In order to study the electrostatic properties of a single biological membrane (not an stack of bilayers), we propose a very simple and effective external potential that simulates the interaction of the bilayer with the surrounding water and that takes into account the microscopic pair distribution functions of water. The electrostatic interactions are calculated using Ewald sums but, for the macroscopic electrostatic field, we use an approximation recently tested in simulations of Newton black films that essentially consists in a coarsed fit (perpendicular to the bilayer plane) of the molecular charge distributions with Gaussian distributions. The method of effective macroscopic and external potentials is extremely simple to implement in numerical simulations, and the spatial and temporal charge inhomogeneities are then roughly taken into account. As examples of their use, several molecular dynamics simulations of simple models of a single biological membrane, of neutral or charged polar amphiphilics, with or without water (using the TIP5P intermolecular potential for water) are included. The numerical simulations are performed using a simplified amphiphilic model which allows the inclusion of a large number of molecules in these simulations, but nevertheless taking into account molecular charge distributions, flexible amphiphilic molecules, and a reliable model of water. All these parameters are essential in a nanoscopic scale study of intermolecular and long range electrostatic interactions. This amphiphilic model was previously used by us to simulate a Newton black film, and, in this paper, we extend our investigation to bilayers of the biological membrane type.

Macroscopic electrostatic potentials and interactions in self-assembled molecular bilayers: the case of Newton black films

We propose a very simple but "realistic" model of amphiphilic bilayers, simple enough to be able to include a large number of molecules in the sample but nevertheless detailed enough to include molecular charge distributions, flexible amphiphilic molecules, and a reliable model of water. All these parameters are essential in a nanoscopic scale study of intermolecular and long range electrostatic interactions. We also propose a novel, simple, and more accurate macroscopic electrostatic field for model bilayers. This model goes beyond the total dipole moment of the sample, which on a time average is zero for this type of symmetrical samples; i.e., it includes higher order moments of this macroscopic electric field. We show that by representing it with a superposition of Gaussians, it can be analytically integrated, and therefore its calculation is easily implemented in a molecular dynamics simulation (even in simulations of nonsymmetrical bi- or multilayers). In this paper we test our model by molecular dynamics simulations of Newton black films.