Density dependence of hydrogen bonding and the translational-orientational structural order in supercritical water: a...

Molecular dynamics simulation have been performed with a wide range of densities along a near critical isotherm of supercritical water (SCW) in order to study the density dependence of the structure order and hydrogen bonding (HB). It is revealed that the translational structure order is nearly invariant while the orientational tetrahedral structure order is very sensitive to the bulk density under supercritical conditions. Meanwhile, some energetically unfavorable intermediate water dimer structures are found to appear under supercritical conditions due to the reduced energy difference and the enhanced energy fluctuation. As a consequence, a general geometrical criterion or the inclusion of a energy-based criterion instead of currently widely adopted pure r(OH)-based geometric criterion is suggested to be used in the HB statistics under supercritical conditions. It is found that the average HB number per H(2)O molecule (n(HB)) reduces with the decreasing SCW bulk density although a given pair of H(2)O molecules are shown to have a stronger ability to form a hydrogen bond under lower SCW bulk densities. Accordingly, the orientational tetrahedral structure order q decreases with the reducing bulk density under supercritical conditions. However, when the fluid is dilute with ρ ≤ 0.19ρ(c) (ρ(c) = 0.322 g/cm(3)), the energy fluctuation increases sharply and the short-range order is destroyed, signifying the supercritical fluid (SCF)-gas state transition. Accordingly, the orientational tetrahedral structure order q gets reversal around ρ = 0.19ρ(c) and approaches zero under very dilute conditions. The sensitivity of the orientational order to the density implies the microscopic origin of the significant dependence of SCF's physicochemical properties on the pressure.