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What makes a material a good ice nucleating agent? Despite the importance of heterogeneous ice nucleation to a variety of fields, from cloud science to microbiology, major gaps in our understanding of this ubiquitous process still prevent…
During the evolution of diffuse clouds to molecular clouds, gas-phase molecules freeze out on surfaces of small dust particles to form ices. On dust surfaces, water is the main constituent of the icy mantle in which a complex chemistry is…
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…
Water interactions with oxygen-deficient cerium dioxide (CeO$_2$) surfaces are central to hydrogen production and catalytic redox reactions, but the atomic-scale details of how defects influence adsorption and reactivity remain elusive.…
The diffusion of water molecules through mesoporous dust of amorphous carbon (a-C) is a key process in the evolution of prestellar, protostellar, and protoplanetary dust, as well as in that of comets. It also plays a role in the formation…
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a class of synthetic chemical compounds widely used as coatings to lower surface energies. Yet the microscopic mechanisms of their weak interaction with water and organic compounds remain poorly…
The charging and dissolution of mineral surfaces in contact with flowing liquids are ubiquitous in nature, as most minerals in water spontaneously acquire charge and dissolve. Mineral dissolution has been studied extensively under…
The behavior of microgels near surfaces and their adsorption is studied by simple scaling theory. Two different types of microgels can be studied, i.e., fractal type microgels and randomly crosslinked polymer chains. In the first case the…
A colloidal monolayer embedded in the bulk of a fluid experiences a "compressible", long-range hydrodynamic interaction which, far from boundaries, leads to a breakdown of Fick's law above a well defined length scale, showing up as…
Water condensation was studied on silanized (superhydrophobic) and fluorinated (superoleophobic) micro-rough aluminum surfaces of the same topography. Condensation on superhydrophobic surfaces occurred via film-wise mechanism, whereas on…
The structure of the transient layer at the interface between air and the aqueous solution of silica nanoparticles with the size distribution of particles that has been determined from small-angle scattering has been studied by the X-ray…
The structure of water confined in MCM41 silica cylindrical pores is studied to determine if confined water really is simply a version of the bulk liquid which can be substantially supercooled without crystallisation. A combination of total…
Mineral dissolution in porous media coupled with single- or multi-phase flows is pervasive in natural and engineering systems including carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and acid stimulation in reservoir engineering. Dissolution of…
Belite -- dicalcium silicate Ca$_2$SiO$_4$ -- is a main constituent of low-carbon cement. In this work, we study several terminations of the (010) surface of $\gamma$-belite, its most stable polymorph, by molecular dynamics simulations. The…
Hydrophobic solid-water interfaces underpin processes in nanofluidics, electrochemistry, and energy technologies. Microscopic insights into these systems are often inferred from our understanding of the air-water interface, which is assumed…
It is proposed that the rapid observed homogeneous nucleation of ice dust in a cold, weakly-ionized plasma depends on the formation of hydroxide (OH$^-$) by fast electrons impacting water molecules. These OH$^{-}$ ions attract neutral water…
Photocatalytic nitrogen reduction under ambient conditions represents a promising pathway toward sustainable ammonia production. However, the fundamental mechanisms, particularly the role of photogenerated charge carriers and their…
Freezing is a fundamental physical phenomenon that has been studied over many decades; yet the role played by surfaces in determining nucleation has remained elusive. Here we report direct computational evidence of surface induced…
Water diffusion across the surfaces of materials is of importance to disparate processes such as water purification, ice formation, and more. Despite reports of rapid water diffusion on surfaces the molecular-level details of such processes…
Carbonates are the main species that bring carbon deep into our planet through subduction. They are an important rock-forming mineral group, fundamentally distinct from silicates in Earth's crust in that carbon binds to three oxygen atoms,…