No Arabic abstract
We report a study of the effects of pressure on the diffusivity of water molecules confined in single- wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT) with average mean pore diameter of 16 Angstroms. The measurements were carried out using high-resolution neutron scattering, over the temperature range 220 < T < 260 K, and at two pressure conditions: ambient and elevated pressure. The high pressure data were collected at constant volume on cooling, with P varying from 1.92 kbar at temperature T = 260 K to 1.85 kbar at T = 220 K. Analysis of the observed dynamic structure factor S(Q, E) reveals the presence of two relaxation processes, a faster diffusion component (FC) associated with the motion of caged or restricted molecules, and a slower component arising from the free water molecules diffusing within the SWNT matrix. While the temperature dependence of the slow relaxation time exhibits a Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann law and is non-Arrhenius in nature, the faster component follows an Arrhenius exponential law at both pressure conditions. The application of pressure remarkably slows down the overall molecular dynamics, in agreement with previous observations, but most notably affects the slow relaxation. The faster relaxation shows marginal or no change with pressure within the experimental conditions.
We report the diffusion of water molecules confined in the pores of folded silica materials (FSM-12 with average pore diameter of $sim$ 16 AA), measured by means of quasielastic neutron scattering using the cold neutron chopper spectrometer (CNCS). The goal is to investigate the effect of electric field on the previously observed fast component of nano-confined water. The measurements were taken at temperatures between 220 K and 245 K, and at two electric field values, 0 kV/mm and 2 kV/mm. Similar to the recently observed electric field induced enhancement of the slow translational motion of confined water, there is a an equally important impact of the field on the faster diffusion.
Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering provides a means of directly and accurately measuring the momentum distribution of protons in water, which is determined primarily by the protons ground state wavefunction. We find that in water confined on scales of 20A, this wave function responds to the details of the confinement, corresponds to a strongly anharmonic local potential, shows evidence in some cases of coherent delocalization in double wells, and involves changes in zero point kinetic energy of the protons from -40 to +120 meV difference from that of bulk water at room temperature. This behavior appears to be a generic feature of nanoscale confinement. It is exhibited here in 16A inner diameter carbon nanotubes, two different hydrated proton exchange membranes(PEMs), Nafion 1120 and Dow 858, and has been seen earlier in xerogel and 14A diameter carbon nanotubes. The proton conductivity in the PEM samples correlates with the degree of coherent delocalization of the proton.
Dynamic buckling is addressed for complete elastic spherical shells subject to a rapidly applied step in external pressure. Insights from the perspective of nonlinear dynamics reveal essential mathematical features of the buckling phenomena. To capture the strong buckling imperfection-sensitivity, initial geometric imperfections in the form of an axisymmetric dimple at each pole are introduced. Dynamic buckling under the step pressure is related to the quasi-static buckling pressure. Both loadings produce catastrophic collapse of the shell for conditions in which the pressure is prescribed. Damping plays an important role in dynamic buckling because of the time-dependent nonlinear interaction among modes, particularly the interaction between the spherically symmetric breathing mode and the buckling mode. In this paper we argue that the precise frequency dependence of the damping does not matter as most of the damping happens at a single frequency (the breathing frequency). In general, there is not a unique step pressure threshold separating responses associated with buckling from those that do not buckle. Instead there exists a cascade of buckling thresholds, dependent on the damping and level of imperfection, separating pressures for which buckling occurs from those for which it does not occur. For shells with small and moderately small imperfections the dynamic step buckling pressure can be substantially below the quasi-static buckling pressure.
The effects of static electric field on the dynamics of lysozyme and its hydration water have been investigated by means of incoherent quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS). Measurements were performed on lysozyme samples, hydrated respectively with heavy water (D2O) to capture the protein dynamics, and with light water (H2O), to probe the dynamics of the hydration shell, in the temperature range from 210 $<$ T $<$ 260 K. The hydration fraction in both cases was about $sim$ 0.38 gram of water per gram of dry protein. The field strengths investigated were respectively 0 kV/mm and 2 kV/mm (2 10$^6$ V/m) for the protein hydrated with D2O and 0 kV and 1 kV/mm for the H2O hydrated counterpart. While the overall internal protons dynamics of the protein appears to be unaffected by the application of electric field up to 2 kV/mm, likely due to the stronger intra-molecular interactions, there is also no appreciable quantitative enhancement of the diffusive dynamics of the hydration water, as would be anticipated based on our recent observations in water confined in silica pores under field values of 2.5 kV/mm. This may be due to the difference in surface interactions between water and the two adsorption hosts (silica and protein), or to the existence of a critical threshold field value Ec $sim$ 2-3 kV/mm for increased molecular diffusion, for which electrical breakdown is a limitation for our sample.
Graphene nanochannels are relevant for their possible applications, as in water purification, and for the challenge of understanding how they change the properties of confined liquids. Here, we use all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to investigate water confined in an open graphene slit-pore as a function of its width $w$, down to sub-nm scale. We find that the water translational and rotational dynamics exhibits an oscillatory dependence on $w$, due to water layering. The oscillations in dynamics correlate with those in hydration pressure, which can be negative (hydrophobic attraction), or as high as $sim 1$ GPa, as seen in the experiments. At pore widths commensurable with full layers (around $7.0$ AA and $9.5$ AA for one and two layers, respectively), the free energy of the system has minima, and the hydration pressure vanishes. These are the separations at which the dynamics of confined water slows down. Nevertheless, the hydration pressure vanishes also where the free energy has maxima, i.e., for those pore-widths which are incommensurable with the formation of well-separated layers, as $wsimeq 8.0$ AA. Around these values of $w$, the dynamics is faster than in bulk, with water squeezed out from the pore. This behavior has not been observed for simple liquids under confinement, either for water in closed nano-pores. The decomposition of the free energy clarifies the origins of the dynamics speedups and slowdowns. In particular, we find that the nature of the slowdown depends on the number of water layers: for two layers, it is due to the internal energy contribution, as in simple liquids, while for one layer, it has an entropic origin possibly due to the existence of a hydrogen-bond network in water. Our results shed light on the mechanisms ruling the dynamics and thermodynamics of confined water and are a guide for future experiments.