ABSTRACT
The ice quasi-liquid layer (QLL) forms on ice surfaces below the bulk ice melting temperature. It is abundant in the atmosphere, and its importance for atmospheric chemistry is recognized. In the present work, we have studied the microscopic mechanisms of acid ionization on the QLL using ab initio molecular dynamics. The model system QLL is established by nanosecond time scale simulations with empirical force fields, while the reactivity of the QLL is studied using ab initio molecular dynamics. Our ab initio simulations reveal that QLL is reactive, exhibiting stable crystalline point defects, which contribute to efficient acid solvation, ionization, and proton transfer. We study in detail deuterated hydrogen iodide (DI) and nitric acid (DNO3). Ionization in both cases benefits from the abundance of weakly bonded hydrogen-bond single-acceptor double-donor water molecular species available on the QLL in high relative concentration. Picosecond time scale ionization is demonstrated for both molecular species. Our results suggest efficient reactivity of acid ionization and proton transfer at temperature ranges appropriate for the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.
ABSTRACT
Recently, a number of experimental and theoretical studies of low-temperature ice and water in nanoscale systems have emerged. Any theoretical study trying to model such systems will encounter the proton-disorder problem, i.e., there exist many configurations differing by water-molecule rotations for a fixed oxygen atom structure. An extensive search within the allowed proton-disorder space should always be perfomed to ensure a reasonable low-energy isomer and to address the effect of proton-configurational entropy that may affect experimental observables. In the present work, an efficient general-purpose program for finite, semiperiodic, and periodic systems of hydrogen-bonded molecules is presented, which can be used in searching and enumerating the proton-configurational ensemble. Benchmarking tests are performed for ice nanotubes and finite slabs. Finally, the program is applied to experimentally appropriate ice nanosystems. A boron nitride film supported ice nanodot is studied in detail. Using a systematic generation of its proton-configurational ensemble, we find an isomer that is â¼1 eV lower in total energy than one previously studied. The present isomer features a considerable dipole moment and implies that ice nanodots are inherently ferroelectric parallel to the surface. We conclude by demonstrating how the so-called hydrogen-bond connectivity parameters can be used to screen low-energy isomers.
ABSTRACT
We have performed an exhaustive study of energetics of (H2O)20 clusters. Our goal is to study the role that various free-energy terms play in this popular model system and see their effects on the distribution of the (H2O)20 clusters and in the infrared spectrum at finite temperatures. In more detail, we have studied the electronic ground-state structure energy and its long-range correlation (dispersion) part, vibrational zero-point corrections, vibrational entropy, and proton configurational entropy. Our results indicate a delicate competition between the energy terms; polyhedral water clusters are destabilized by dispersion interaction, while vibrational terms (zero-point and entropic) together with proton disorder entropy favor them against compact structural motifs, such as the pentagonal edge- or face-sharing prisms. Apart from small water clusters, our results can be used to understand the influence of these energy terms in water/ice systems in general. We have also developed energy expressions as a function of both earlier proposed and novel hydrogen-bond connectivity parameters for prismatic water clusters.
ABSTRACT
Ionization of nitric acid (HNO3) on a model ice surface is studied using ab initio molecular dynamics at temperatures of 200 and 40 K with a surface slab model that consists of the ideal ice basal plane with locally optimized and annealed defects. Pico- and subpicosecond ionization of nitric acid can be achieved in the defect sites. Key features of the rapid ionization are (a) the efficient solvation of the polyatomic nitrate anion, by stealing hydrogen bonds from the weakened hydrogen bonds at defect sites, (b) formation of contact ion pairs to stable "presolvated" molecular species that are present at the defects,
ABSTRACT
A graph-theoretical analysis is performed on the (H(2)O)(20) "edge-sharing pentagonal prism" cluster to find proton configurations that yield the lowest cluster total energies. Using the low-energy structures, we create models for protonated (H(2)O)(20)H(+) clusters that compete energetically with "cage-like" structures proposed earlier in the literature. We perform benchmarking between different theoretical methods and observe significant stabilization of compact versus polyhedral clusters due to long-range electron correlation effects, which make the comparison between different cluster morphologies difficult using density functional theory only. All methodologies that we used (up to the second level of Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2)) agree that for protonated clusters, the cage-like morphology proposed in [ Chem. Phys. Lett. 2000, 324, 279-288] is the most stable one. We study in detail several (H(2)O)(20)H(+) cluster structures and suggest that the energetics in small protonated water clusters is dominated by the competition of open polyhedral structures, favored by the Eigen H(9)O(4)(+) species, against van der Waals interaction and "ice rules", which both favor compact structural motifs such as the prismatic particle. We demonstrate this tendency using ab initio calculations for prismatic, dodecahedral, and cage-like clusters, while the "magic number" cluster (H(2)O)(n)H(+), n = 21, is observed to minimize all competing energy contributions simultaneously. We emphasize the utility of the cage-like cluster as a model template for ice-related atmospheric reactions and benchmark the GPAW density functional theory code for making such calculations.
