Methane adsorption onto silicas with various degree of hydrophobicity

The methane adsorption onto a hydrated surface of hydrophobic silica AM1 alone and impregnated by arginine, and silica gel Si-100 has been studied using low-temperature 1H NMR spectroscopy. It has been shown that the methane adsorption onto the AM1 surface depends on the degree of hydration and pretreatment type. The maximum adsorption (up to 80 mg/g) is observed for a sample hydrated after complete drying. It has been established that the adsorption is determined by a number of clusters of bound water of small radii. Based on a shape of the temperature dependence of the adsorption, it has been assumed that not only physical adsorption occurs, but also the quasi-solid methane hydrates are formed. It has been established that the amount of methane adsorbed onto a surface of a composite system AM1/arginine under isobaric conditions increases by tens of times (from 0.5 to 80 mg/g) in the presence of pre-adsorbed water pre-adsorbed at the surface. Probable mechanisms of the methane adsorption are physical adsorption on a surface, condensation in narrow voids between silica nanoparticles and nano-scaled (1-10 nm) water clusters, and the formation of solid (clathrate) methane hydrates. Water, adsorbed at a surface in a wide range of hydration, forms various clusters. This water is mainly strongly associated and characterized by chemical shifts in the range dH = 4-6 ppm. The hydrate structures with methane/water are quite stable and can exist even in the chloroform medium. However, in this case, a part of water transforms into a weakly associated state and it is observed at dH = 1.5-2 ppm.

Synthesis, properties, application of nanosized powders of oxides and hydroxides. Cluster model of water state on their surface

The work is devoted to the development of the physicochemical foundations of the processes of obtaining powders of oxides and hydroxides, including aluminum, magnesium, calcium, and silicon with a given shape, size, impurity and phase composition, low thermal conductivity, etc., by methods of pyrolysis of a polymer matrix and hydrothermal treatment element-containing precursors, as well as the creation of a mechanism that allows describing the phase transformations of powders of oxides and hydroxides and reveals the role of water clusters with a low heat of vaporization in phase transformations.

Pseudo Jahn−Teller Origin of the Proton Tunneling in Zundel Cation Containing Water Clusters

The pseudo Jahn–Teller (PJT) origin of the proton transfer barrier in the Zundel cation at different O–O distances and in an H5O2+(H2O)4 cluster is revealed by means of ab initio calculations of their electronic structures and the adiabatic potential energy curves. The vibronic constants in this approach were estimated by fitting the ab initio calculated adiabatic potential to its analytical expression. It is shown also that the high-symmetry nuclear configurations ofproton-centered water clusters of the type H+(H2O)n (n = 6, 4, 3) are unstable with respect to the low-symmetry nuclear distortions leading to forming the dihydronium cation H5O2+ and the appropriate number of water molecules: H2n + 1On+ → (n – 2)H2O + H5O2+. The reason for this instability and the subsequent decay is the PJT coupling between the ground and excited electronic states.

Temperature-Induced Change of Water Structure in Aqueous Solutions of Some Kosmotropic and Chaotropic Salts

The hydrogen bond structure of water was examined by comparing the temperature dependent OH-stretching bands of water and aqueous NaClO4, KClO4, Na2SO4, and K2SO4 solutions. Results called attention to the role of cations on top of the importance of anions determining the emerging structure of a multi-layered system consisting single water rings or multi-ring water-clusters.

X-ray emission spectroscopy: a genetic algorithm to disentangle core–hole-induced dynamics

A genetic algorithm (GA) is developed and applied to make proper connections of final-state potential-energy surfaces and X-ray emission (XES) cross sections between steps in the time-propagation of H-bonded systems after a core–hole is created. We show that this modification results in significantly improved resolution of spectral features in XES with the semiclassical Kramers–Heisenberg approach which takes into account important interference effects. We demonstrate the effects on a water pentamer model as well as on two 17-molecules water clusters representing, respectively, tetrahedral (D2A2) and asymmetric (D1A1) H-bonding environments. For D2A2, the applied procedure improves significantly the obtained intensities, whereas for D1A1 the effects are smaller due to milder dynamics during the core–hole life-time as only one hydrogen is involved. We reinvestigate XES for liquid ethanol and, by properly disentangling the relevant states in the dense manifold of states using the GA, now resolve the important 3a′′ state as a peak rather than a shoulder. Furthermore, by applying the SpecSwap-RMC procedure, we reweigh the distribution of structures in the sampling of the liquid to fit to experiment and estimate the ratio between the main anti and gauche conformers in the liquid at room temperature. This combination of techniques will be generally applicable to challenging problems in liquid-phase spectroscopy.