Ion complexation waves emerge at the curved interfaces of layered minerals

Michael L. Whittaker (), David Ren, Colin Ophus, Yugang Zhang, Laura Waller, Benjamin Gilbert and Jillian F. Banfield
Additional contact information
Michael L. Whittaker: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
David Ren: University of California
Colin Ophus: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Yugang Zhang: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Laura Waller: University of California
Benjamin Gilbert: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Jillian F. Banfield: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Visualizing hydrated interfaces is of widespread interest across the physical sciences and is a particularly acute need for layered minerals, whose properties are governed by the structure of the electric double layer (EDL) where mineral and solution meet. Here, we show that cryo electron microscopy and tomography enable direct imaging of the EDL at montmorillonite interfaces in monovalent electrolytes with ångstrom resolution over micron length scales. A learning-based multiple-scattering reconstruction method for cryo electron tomography reveals ions bound asymmetrically on opposite sides of curved, exfoliated layers. We observe conserved ion-density asymmetry across stacks of interacting layers in cryo electron microscopy that is associated with configurations of inner- and outer-sphere ion-water-mineral complexes that we term complexation waves. Coherent X-ray scattering confirms that complexation waves propagate at room-temperature via a competition between ion dehydration and charge interactions that are coupled across opposing sides of a layer, driving dynamic transitions between stacked and aggregated states via layer exfoliation.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31004-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-31004-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31004-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().