Related papers: Nucleation in Confinement Generates Long-range Rep…
Nucleation in small volumes of water has garnered renewed interest due to the relevance of pore condensation and freezing under conditions of low partial pressures of water, such as in the upper troposphere. Molecular simulations can in…
Much of the understanding of bulk liquids has progressed through study of the limiting case in which molecules interact via purely repulsive forces, such as a hard-core potential. In the same spirit, we report progress on the understanding…
We consider the sedimentation of a colloidal gel under confinement in the direction of gravity. The confinement allows us to compare directly experiments and computer simulations, for the same system size in the vertical direction. The…
Smectite clay minerals have an outsize impact on the response of clay-rich media to common stimuli, such as water imbibition and ion exchange, motivating extensive effort to understand microscopic behaviors resulting from these processes…
Using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) we measure the interaction between two identically charged silica surfaces in the presence of saline solution. For pure NaCl the interaction is always repulsive. Upon addition of cobalt hexamine ions,…
We demonstrate an unexpected decay-recovery behaviour in the time-dependent $^{1}\mathrm{H}$ NMR relaxation times of water confined within a hydrating porous material. Our observations are rationalised by considering the combined effects of…
Recent experimental results by the Surface Force Apparatus (SFA) have identified a dramatic deviation from previously established theories of simple electrolytes. This deviation, referred to as anomalous underscreening, suggests that the…
The description of forces across confined complex fluids still holds many challenges due to the possible overlap of different contributions. Here, an attempt is made to untangle the interaction between charged surfaces across nanoparticle…
Water mediates electrostatic interactions via the orientation of its dipoles around ions, molecules, and interfaces. This induced water polarization consequently influences multiple phenomena. In particular, water polarization modulated by…
Despite its importance in atmospheric science, much remains unknown about the microscopic mechanism of heterogeneous ice nucleation. In this work, we perform hybrid Monte Carlo simulations of the heterogeneous nucleation of ice on a range…
Clays control carbon, water and nutrient transport in the lithosphere, promote cloud formation5 and lubricate fault slip through interactions among hydrated mineral interfaces. Clay mineral properties are difficult to model because their…
Nanoscale confinement of molecules in a fluid can result in enhanced viscosity, local fluidic order, or collective motion. Confinement also affects ion transport and/or the rate and equilibrium concentration in a chemical reaction, all of…
Surface effects could play a dominant role in modifying the natural liquid order. In some cases, the effects of the surface interactions can propagate inwards, and even can interfere with a similar propagation from opposite surfaces. This…
The growth of crystals confined in porous or cellular materials is ubiquitous in Nature and industry. Confinement affects the formation of biominerals in living organisms, of minerals in the Earth's crust and of salt crystals damaging…
We determined bulk crystal nucleation rates in aqueous suspensions of charged spheres at low metastability. Experiments were performed in dependence on electrolyte concen-tration and for two different particle number densities. The…
Coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations are presented in which the sensitivity of the ice nucleation rate to the hydrophilicity of a graphene nanoflake is investigated. We find that an optimal interaction strength for promoting ice…
Crystallization pressure drives deformation and damage in monuments, buildings and the Earth's crust. Even though the phenomenon has been known for 170 years there is no agreement between theoretical calculations of the maximum attainable…
Interfacial interactions significantly alter the fundamental properties of water confined in mesoporous structures, with crucial implications for geological, physicochemical, and biological processes. Herein, we focused on the effect of…
Understanding nucleation from aqueous solutions is of fundamental importance in a multitude of fields, ranging from materials science to biophysics. The complex solvent-mediated interactions in aqueous solutions hamper the development of a…
The morphology and transport properties of thin films of the ionomer Nafion, with thicknesses on the order of the bulk cluster size, have been investigated as a model system to explain the anomalous behaviour of catalyst/electrode-polymer…