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Updated: Apr 5, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Experimental Correlation Between Interfacial Water Structure and Mineral Reactivity
Shalaka Dewan1, Mohsen S Yeganeh2, Eric Borguet1
1†Department of Chemistry, Temple University, 1901 North 13th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122, United States.
Abstract:
We present an experimental demonstration of the effect of solvent structure on the interfacial reactivity of the silica/water interface using in situ vibrational Sum-frequency Generation (vSFG) spectroscopy. The response of the molecular arrangement of the interfacial solvent to the presence of cations is pH dependent with the highest sensitivity at neutral pH, relevant to geochemical and biological environments. The pH-dependent changes in vSFG spectra are in excellent correlation with the enhancement of quartz dissolution in salt water, which was hypothesized by Dove et al. to be due to changes of the interfacial solvent structure at the silica surface. vSFG provides mechanistic insights into silica dissolution and sheds light on the role of ions in altering interfacial solvent ordering, which has implications in fields ranging from protein-water interactions to oil recovery.
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As for any solution, the solubility of a gas in a liquid is affected by the attractive intermolecular forces between solute and solvent species. Unlike solid and liquid solutes, however, there is no solute-solute intermolecular attraction to overcome when a gaseous solute dissolves in a liquid solvent since the atoms or molecules comprising a gas are far separated and experience negligible interactions. Consequently, solute-solvent interactions are the sole...

