Minkara, Mona S. | Engineering Papers

DOE OSTI2022

Nonane and Hexanol Adsorption in the Lamellar Phase of a Nonionic Surfactant: Molecular Simulations and Comparison to Ideal Adsorbed Solution Theory

Adsorption of n-nonane/1-hexanol (C9/C6OH) mixtures into the lamellar phase formed by a 50/50 w/w triethylene glycol mono-n-decyl ether (C10E3)/water system was studied using configurational-bias Monte Carlo simulations in the osmotic Gibbs ensemble. The interactions were described by the Shinoda–Devane–Klein coarse-grained force field. Prior simulations probing single-component adsorption indicated that C9 molecules preferentially load near the center of the bilayer increasing the bilayer thickness, whereas C6OH molecules are more likely to be found near the interface of the polar and non-polar moieties swelling the bilayer in the lateral dimension. Here, we extend this work to binary C9/C6OH adsorption to probe whether the difference in the spatial preferences may lead to a synergistic effect and enhanced loadings for the mixture. Comparing loading trends and the thermodynamics of binary adsorption to unary adsorption reveals that C9–C9 interactions lead to the largest enhancement, whereas C9–C6OH and C6OH–C6OH interactions are less favorable for this bilayer system. As a result, ideal adsorbed solution theory yields satisfactory predictions of the binary loading.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2019

Partial molar properties from molecular simulation using multiple linear regression

Partial molar volumes, energies, and enthalpies can be computed from NpT-Gibbs ensemble simulations through a post-processing procedure that leverages fluctuations in composition, total volume, and total energy of a simulation box. By recording the instantaneous box volumes V and instantaneous number of molecules N i of each of n species for M frames, a large M ×n matrix N is constructed, as well as the M × 1 vector V. The 1 × n vector of partial molar volumes V¯ may then be solved using N • V¯=V. A similar construction permits calculation of partial molar energies using M instantaneous measurements of the total energy of the simulation box, and N • U¯=U. Partial molar enthalpies may be derived from U¯, V¯, and pressure p. These properties may be used to calculate enthalpy and entropy of transfer (absorption, extraction, and adsorption) for species in complex mixtures. The method is demonstrated on three systems in the NpT-Gibbs ensemble: a highly compressible natural gas condensate of methane, n-butane, and n-decane, the liquid-phase adsorption of 1,5-pentanediol and ethanol onto the MFI zeolite, and a relatively incompressible mixture of ethanol, n-dodecane, and water at liquid-liquid equilibrium. Property predictions are compared to those from numerical differentiation of simulation data sequentially changing the composition and from equations of state. Here, the method can also be extended to reaction equilibria in a closed system and is applied to a reactive first-principles Monte Carlo simulation of compressed nitrogen/oxygen.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗