Electroneutrality breakdown and specific ion effects in nanoconfined aqueous electrolytes observed by NMR

Zhi-Xiang Luo, Yun-Zhao Xing, Yan-Chun Ling, Alfred Kleinhammes and Yue Wu ()
Additional contact information
Zhi-Xiang Luo: University of North Carolina
Yun-Zhao Xing: University of North Carolina
Yan-Chun Ling: University of North Carolina
Alfred Kleinhammes: University of North Carolina
Yue Wu: University of North Carolina

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Ion distribution in aqueous electrolytes near the interface plays a critical role in electrochemical, biological and colloidal systems, and is expected to be particularly significant inside nanoconfined regions. Electroneutrality of the total charge inside nanoconfined regions is commonly assumed a priori in solving ion distribution of aqueous electrolytes nanoconfined by uncharged hydrophobic surfaces with no direct experimental validation. Here, we use a quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance approach to investigate the properties of aqueous electrolytes nanoconfined in graphitic-like nanoporous carbon. Substantial electroneutrality breakdown in nanoconfined regions and very asymmetric responses of cations and anions to the charging of nanoconfining surfaces are observed. The electroneutrality breakdown is shown to depend strongly on the propensity of anions towards the water-carbon interface and such ion-specific response follows, generally, the anion ranking of the Hofmeister series. The experimental observations are further supported by numerical evaluation using the generalized Poisson–Boltzmann equation.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7358 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:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms7358

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

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7358

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 ().