CO2 and C2H2 in cold nanodroplets of oxygenated organic molecules and water

Recent demonstrations of subsecond and microsecond timescales for formation of clathrate hydrate nanocrystals hint at future methods of control of environmental and industrial gases such as CO2 and methane. Combined results from cold-chamber and supersonic-nozzle [A. S. Bhabhe, "Experimental study of condensation and freezing in a supersonic nozzle," Ph.D. thesis (Ohio State University, 2012), Chap. 7] experiments indicate extremely rapid encagement of components of all-vapor pre-mixtures. The extreme rates are derived from (a) the all-vapor premixing of the gas-hydrate components and (b) catalytic activity of certain oxygenated organic large-cage guests. Premixing presents no obvious barrier to large-scale conditions of formation. Further, from sequential efforts of the groups of Trout and Buch, a credible defect-based model of the catalysis mechanism exists for guidance. Since the catalyst-generated defects are both mobile and abundant, it is often unnecessary for a high percentage of the cages to be occupied by a molecular catalyst. Droplets represent the liquid phase that bridges the premixed vapor and clathrate hydrate phases but few data exist for the droplets themselves. Here we describe a focused computational and FTIR spectroscopic effort to characterize the aerosol droplets of the all-vapor cold-chamber methodology. Computational data for CO2 and C2H2, hetero-dimerized with each of the organic catalysts and water, closely match spectroscopic redshift patterns in both magnitude and direction. Though vibrational frequency shifts are an order of magnitude greater for the acetylene stretch mode, both CO2 and C2H2 experience redshift values that increase from that for an 80% water-methanol solvent through the solvent series to approximately doubled values for tetrahydrofuran and trimethylene oxide (TMO) droplets. The TMO solvent properties extend to a 50 mol.% solution of CO2, more than an order of magnitude greater than for the water-methanol solvent mixture. The impressive agreement between heterodimer and experimental shift values throughout the two series encourages speculation concerning local droplet structures while the stable shift patterns appear to be useful indicators of the gas solubilities.