PNNL

Abstract

Molecular dynamic simulations with polarizable potentials were performed to systematically investigate the distribution of NaCl, NaBr, NaI, and SrCl2 at the air/liquid methanol interface. The density profiles indicated that there is no substantial enhancement of anions at the interface for the NaX systems in contrast to what was observed at the air/aqueous interface. The surfactant-like shape of the larger more polarizable halide anions is compensated by the surfactant nature of methanol itself. As a result, methanol hydroxy groups strongly interacted with one side of polarizable anions, in which their induced dipole points, and methanol methyl groups were more likely to be found near the positive pole of anion induced dipoles. Furthermore, salts were found to disrupt the surface structure of methanol, reducing the observed enhancement of methyl groups at the outer edge of the air/liquid methanol interface. With the additional of salts to methanol, the computed surface potentials increased, which is in contrast to what is observed in corresponding aqueous systems, where the surface potential decreases with the addition of salts. Both of these trends have been indirectly observed with experiments. This was found to be due to the propensity of anions for the air/water interface that is not present at the air/liquid methanol interface. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences' Chemical Sciences, Geosciences & Biosciences Division. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle for the US Department of Energy.