scholarly journals Molecular insights on confined water in the nanochannels of self-assembled ionic liquid crystal

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (31) ◽  
pp. eabf0669
Author(s):  
Yoshiki Ishii ◽  
Nobuyuki Matubayasi ◽  
Go Watanabe ◽  
Takashi Kato ◽  
Hitoshi Washizu

Self-assembled ionic liquid crystals can transport water and ions via the periodic nanochannels, and these materials are promising candidates as water treatment membranes. Molecular insights on the water transport process are, however, less investigated because of computational difficulties of ionic soft matters and the self-assembly. Here we report specific behavior of water molecules in the nanochannels by using the self-consistent modeling combining density functional theory and molecular dynamics and the large-scale molecular dynamics calculation. The simulations clearly provide the one-dimensional (1D) and 3D-interconnected nanochannels of self-assembled columnar and bicontinuous structures, respectively, with the precise mesoscale order observed by x-ray diffraction measurement. Water molecules are then confined inside the nanochannels with the formation of hydrogen bonding network. The quantitative analyses of free energetics and anisotropic diffusivity reveal that, the mesoscale geometry of 1D nanodomain profits the nature of water transport via advantages of dissolution and diffusion mechanisms inside the ionic nanochannels.

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 1886-1896 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Liu ◽  
Renbing Wu ◽  
Julia A. Baimova ◽  
Hong Wu ◽  
Adrian Wing-Keung Law ◽  
...  

Water molecules form layered structures inside graphene bilayers and ultra-high pressure-driven flow rates can be observed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Xu ◽  
Lei Yan ◽  
Bingran You

Force field is a central requirement in molecular dynamics (MD) simulation for accurate description of the potential energy landscape and the time evolution of individual atomic motions. Most energy models are limited by a fundamental tradeoff between accuracy and speed. Although ab initio MD based on density functional theory (DFT) has high accuracy, its high computational cost prevents its use for large-scale and long-timescale simulations. Here, we use Bayesian active learning to construct a Gaussian process model of interatomic forces to describe Pt deposited on Ag(111). An accurate model is obtained within one day of wall time after selecting only 126 atomic environments based on two- and three-body interactions, providing mean absolute errors of 52 and 142 meV/Å for Ag and Pt, respectively. Our work highlights automated and minimalistic training of machine-learning force fields with high fidelity to DFT, which would enable large-scale and long-timescale simulations of alloy surfaces at first-principles accuracy.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Souza ◽  
Antonio Chaves Neto ◽  
Francisco Sousa ◽  
Rodrigo Amorim ◽  
Alexandre Reily Rocha ◽  
...  

In this work, we investigate the effects of building block separation of Phenylalanine-Tryptophan nanotube induced by the confined water molecules on the electronic properties using density-functional theory based tight-binding method. <div><br></div>


Author(s):  
Touru Kawaguchi ◽  
Gota Kikugawa ◽  
Ikuya Kinefuchi ◽  
Taku Ohara ◽  
Shinichi Yatuzuka ◽  
...  

The interfacial thermal resistance of 11-mercaptoundecanol (-S(CH2)11OH) self-assembled monolayer (SAM) adsorbed on Au(111) substrate and water was investigated using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. The interfacial thermal resistance was found to be a half of that in the system which consists of 1-dodecanthiol (-S(CH2)11CH3) SAM adsorbed on Au(111) and toluene [Kikugawa G. et al., J. Chem. Phys. (2009)]. The effective thermal energy transfer originates from hydrogen-bond structure between the SAM and water molecules in spite of weak structurization of water molecules near the SAM surface.


Membranes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 165 ◽  
Author(s):  
One-Sun Lee

We performed molecular dynamics simulations of water molecules inside a hydrophobic membrane composed of stacked graphene sheets. By decreasing the density of water molecules inside the membrane, we observed that water molecules form a droplet through a hydrogen bond with each other in the hydrophobic environment that stacked graphene sheets create. We found that the water droplet translates as a whole body rather than a dissipate. The translational diffusion coefficient along the graphene surface increases as the number of water molecules in the droplet decreases, because the bigger water droplet has a stronger van der Waals interaction with the graphene surface that hampers the translational motion. We also observed a longer hydrogen bond lifetime as the density of water decreased, because the hydrophobic environment limits the libration motion of the water molecules. We also calculated the reorientational correlation time of the water molecules, and we found that the rotational motion of confined water inside the membrane is anisotropic and the reorientational correlation time of confined water is slower than that of bulk water. In addition, we employed steered molecular dynamics simulations for guiding the target molecule, and measured the free energy profile of water and ion penetration through the interstice between graphene sheets. The free energy profile of penetration revealed that the optimum interlayer distance for desalination is ~10 Å, where the minimum distance for water penetration is 7 Å. With a 7 Å interlayer distance between the graphene sheets, water molecules are stabilized inside the interlayer space because of the van der Waals interaction with the graphene sheets where sodium and chloride ions suffer from a 3–8 kcal/mol energy barrier for penetration. We believe that our simulation results would be a significant contribution for designing a new graphene-based membrane for desalination.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 2164-2174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Presti ◽  
Alfonso Pedone ◽  
Giordano Mancini ◽  
Celia Duce ◽  
Maria Rosaria Tiné ◽  
...  

Density functional theory calculations and classical molecular dynamics simulations have been used to investigate the structure and dynamics of water molecules on kaolinite surfaces and confined in the interlayer of a halloysite model of nanometric dimension.


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