Molecular model of self diffusion in polar organic liquids: implications for conductivity and fluidity in polar...

Decades of studying isothermal and temperature-dependent mass and charge transport in polar organic liquids and electrolytes have resulted in two mutually incompatible models and the failure to develop a general molecular level picture. The hydrodynamic model describes conductivity, diffusion, and dielectric relaxation in terms of viscosity, while the inadequacy of the thermal activation model leads to empirical descriptions and fitting procedures whose adjustable parameters have little or no physical significance. We recently demonstrated that transport data can be characterized with a high degree of accuracy and self-consistency using the compensated Arrhenius formalism (CAF), where the transport property of interest assumes an Arrhenius-like form that also includes a dielectric constant dependence in the exponential prefactor. Here, we provide the molecular-level basis for the CAF by first modifying transition state theory, emphasizing the coupling of the diffusing molecule's motion with the dynamical motion of the surrounding matrix. We then explicitly include the polarization energy contribution from the dipolar medium. The polarization energy is related to molecular and system properties through the dipole moment and dipole density, respectively. The energy barrier for transport is coupled to the polarization energy, and we show that accounting for the role of the polarization energy leads naturally to the dielectric constant dependence in the exponential prefactor.