PNNL

Abstract

Ions moving across the oil water interface are strongly impacted by the continuous changes in solvation. The solvation potential for Cs+ is directly measured as they approach the oil-water interface (“oil” = 3-methylpentane), from 0.4 to 4 nm away. The oil-water interfaces are created at 40K using molecular beam epitaxy and a softlanding ion beam, with pre-placed ions. The solvation potential slope was determined at each distance by balancing it against an increasing electrostatic potential made by increasing the number of imbedded ions at that distance, and monitoring the resulting ion motion. The potential approaches the Born model for greater than z>0.4nm, and shows the predicted reduction of the polarizability at z