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Ice-Liquid Oscillations in Nanoconfined Water
Noah Kastelowitz1, Valeria Molinero1
1Department of Chemistry , The University of Utah , 315 South 1400 East , Salt Lake City , Utah 84112-0850 , United States.
ACS Nano
|July 20, 2018
Summary
In highly nanoconfined systems, water ice and liquid phases do not coexist spatially. Instead, they exhibit temporal coexistence through oscillations between liquid and crystalline states, a novel behavior not seen in bulk water.
Area of Science:
- Physical Chemistry
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
Background:
- Nanoscale confinement significantly influences water's phase behavior.
- Novel crystalline and quasicrystalline water structures have been observed in nanoslits.
- Ice-liquid coexistence in extremely nanoconfined systems remains poorly understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate ice-liquid equilibrium for water confined between nanoscopic disks.
- Characterize the unique phase behavior of water in highly confined geometries.
- Compare nanoconfined water behavior to bulk water and extended nanoslit systems.
Main Methods:
- Utilized molecular simulations to model water confined between two nanoscopic disks.
- Analyzed the phase transitions and coexistence phenomena of confined water.
- Examined the energetic contributions of interfaces in nanoconfined systems.
Main Results:
- Discovered that ice and liquid water do not spatially coexist in highly nanoconfined disk systems.
- Observed temporal coexistence, with systems oscillating between all-liquid and all-crystalline states.
- Identified the high interfacial energy cost in small systems as the reason for avoiding spatial coexistence.
Conclusions:
- The ice-liquid phase coexistence in nanodisks differs fundamentally from bulk water and nanoslits.
- Temporal coexistence is a unique characteristic of water in extreme nanoconfinement.
- The avoidance of spatial coexistence is driven by system size and interfacial energetics, lacking bulk analogues.
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