A visualized analysis of small-angle neutron scattering intensity: concentration fluctuation in alcohol–water mixtures

Quantifying the Nearly Random Microheterogeneity of Aqueous tert-Butyl Alcohol Solutions Using Vibrational Spectroscopy

The microheterogeneous structure of aqueous tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) solutions is quantified by combining experimental, simulations, and theoretical results. Experimental Raman multivariate curve resolution (Raman-MCR) C-H frequency shift measurements are compared with predictions obtained using combined quantum mechanical and effective fragment potential (QM/EFP) calculations, as well as with molecular dynamics (MD), random mixture (RM), and finite lattice (FL) predictions. The results indicate that the microheterogeneous aggregation in aqueous TBA solutions is slightly less than that predicted by MD simulations performed using either CHARMM generalized force field (CGenFF) or optimized parameters for liquid simulations all atom (OPLS-AA) force fields but slightly more than that in a self-avoiding RM of TBA-like molecules. The results imply that the onset of microheterogeneity in aqueous solutions occurs when solute contact free energies are about an order of magnitude smaller than thermal fluctuations, thus suggesting a fundamental bound of relevance to biological self-assembly.

Subtle changes in hydrogen bond orientation result in glassification of carbon capture solvents

Water-lean CO₂ capture solvents show promise for more efficient and cost-effective CO₂ capture, although their long-term behavior in operation has yet to be well studied. New observations of extended structure solvent behavior show that some solvent formulations transform into a glass-like phase upon aging at operating temperatures after contact with CO₂. The glassification of a solvent would be detrimental to a carbon-capture process due to plugging of infrastructure, introducing a critical need to decipher the underlying principles of this phenomenon to prevent it from happening. We present the first integrated theoretical and experimental study to characterize the nano-structure of metastable and glassy states of an archetypal single-component alkanolguanidine carbon-capture solvent and assess how minute changes in atomic-level interactions convert the solvent between metastable and glass-like states. Small-angle neutron scattering and neutron diffraction coupled with small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering analysis demonstrate that minute structural changes in solution precipitae reversible aggregation of zwitterionic alkylcarbonate clusters in solution. Our findings indicate that our test system, an alkanolguanidine, exhibits a first-order phase transition, similar to a glass transition, at approximately 40 °C-close to the operating absorption temperature for post-combustion CO₂ capture processes. We anticipate that these phenomena are not specific to this system, but are present in other classes of colvents as well. We discuss how molecular-level interactions can have vast implications for solvent-based carbon-capture technologies, concluding that fortunately in this case, glassification of water-lean solvents can be avoided as long as the solvent is run above its glass transition temperature.

Structural behavior of aqueous t-butanol solutions from large-scale molecular dynamics simulations

Large-scale molecular dynamics simulations are reported for aqueous t-butanol (TBA) solutions. The CHARMM generalized force field (CGenFF) for TBA is combined with the TIP4P/2005 model for water. Unlike many other common TBA models, the CGenFF model is miscible with water in all proportions at 300 K. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the existence and nature of a microheterogeneous structure in aqueous TBA solutions. Our simulations of large systems (128 000 and 256 000 particles) at TBA mole fractions of 0.06 and 0.1 clearly reveal the existence of long-range correlations (>10 nm) that show significant variations on long time scales (∼50 ns). We associate these long-range slowly varying correlations with the existence of supramolecular domainlike structures that consist of TBA-rich and water-rich regions. This structure is always present but continually changing in time, giving rise to long-range slowly varying pair correlation functions. We find that this behavior appears to have little influence on the single particle dynamics; the diffusion coefficients of both TBA and water molecules lie in the usual liquid state regime, and mean square displacements provide no indication of anomalous diffusion. Using our large system simulations, we are able to reliably calculate small angle x-ray scattering and small angle neutron scattering spectra, except at a very low wave vector, and the results agree well with recent experiments. However, this paper shows that simulation of the relatively simple TBA/water system remains challenging. This is particularly true if one wishes to obtain properties such as Kirkwood-Buff factors, or scattering functions at a low wave vector, which strongly depend on the long-range behavior of the pair correlations.