The dynamics of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)/water solutions with a wide range of water concentrations are studied using polarization selective infrared pump–probe experiments, two-dimensional infrared (2D IR) vibrational echo spectroscopy, optical heterodyne detected optical Kerr effect (OHD-OKE) experiments, and IR absorption spectroscopy. Vibrational population relaxation of the OD stretch of dilute HOD in H2O displays two vibrational lifetimes even at very low water concentrations that are associated with water–water and water–DMSO hydrogen bonds. The IR absorption spectra also show characteristics of both water–DMSO and water–water hydrogen bonding. Although two populations are observed, water anisotropy decays (orientational relaxation) exhibit single ensemble behavior, indicative of concerted reorientation involving water and DMSO molecules. OHD-OKE experiments, which measure the orientational relaxation of DMSO, reveal that the DMSO orientational relaxation times are the same as orientational relaxation times found for water over a wide range of water concentrations within experimental error. The fact that the reorientation times of water and DMSO are basically the same shows that the reorientation of water is coupled to the reorientation of DMSO itself. These observations are discussed in terms of a jump reorientation model. Frequency–frequency correlation functions determined from the 2D IR experiments on the OD stretch show both fast and slow spectral diffusion. In analogy to bulk water, the fast component is assigned to very local hydrogen bond fluctuations. The slow component, which is similar to the slow water reorientation time at each water concentration, is associated with global hydrogen bond structural randomization.

Optical heterodyne detected optical Kerr effect (OHD-OKE) measurements on a series of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) as a function of chain length and water concentration are presented. The pure RTIL reorientational dynamics are identical in form to those of other molecular liquids studied previously by OHD-OKE (two power laws followed by a single exponential decay at long times), but are much slower at room temperature. In contrast, the addition of water to the longer alkyl chain RTILs causes the emergence of a long time biexponential orientational anisotropy decay. Such distinctly biexponential decays have not been seen previously in OHD-OKE experiments on any type of liquid and are analyzed here using a wobbling-in-a-cone model. The slow component for the longer chain RTILs does not obey the Debye-Stokes-Einstein (DSE) equation across the range of solutions, and thus we attribute it to slow cation reorientational diffusion caused by a stiffening of cation alkyl tail-tail associations. The fast component of the decay is assigned to the motions (wobbling) of the tethered imidazolium head groups. The wobbling-in-a-cone analysis provides estimates of the range of angles sampled by the imidazolium head group prior to the long time scale complete orientational randomization. The heterogeneous dynamics and non-DSE behavior observed here should have a significant effect on reaction rates in RTIL/water cosolvent mixtures.

The addition of lithium salts to ionic liquids causes an increase in viscosity and a decrease in ionic mobility that hinders their possible application as an alternative solvent in lithium ion batteries. Optically heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect spectroscopy was used to study the change in dynamics, principally orientational relaxation, caused by the addition of lithium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide to the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide. Over the time scales studied (1 ps-16 ns) for the pure ionic liquid, two temperature-independent power laws were observed: the intermediate power law (1 ps to approximately 1 ns), followed by the von Schweidler power law. The von Schweidler power law is followed by the final complete exponential relaxation, which is highly sensitive to temperature. The lithium salt concentration, however, was found to affect both power laws, and a discontinuity could be found in the trend observed for the intermediate power law when the concentration (mole fraction) of lithium salt is close to chi(LiTf(2)N) = 0.2. A mode coupling theory (MCT) schematic model was also used to fit the data for both the pure ionic liquid and the different salt concentration mixtures. It was found that dynamics in both types of liquids are described very well by MCT.

Optical heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect (OHD-OKE) experiments and pulsed field-gradient spin-echo NMR (PFGSE-NMR) experiments were performed to measure the rotational and translational diffusion constants of a polyether, tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether (TEGDE), in binary mixtures with water over concentrations ranging from pure TEGDE to approaching infinite dilution. In addition, hydrodynamic calculations of the rotational and translational diffusion constants for several rigid TEGDE conformations in the neat liquid and in the infinitely dilute solution were performed to supplement the experimental data. The rotational relaxation data follow the Debye-Stokes-Einstein (DSE) equation within experimental error over the entire water concentration range. The agreement with the DSE equation indicates that there is no significant structural change of the polyether as the water content is changed. In contrast to the rotational dynamics, the translational diffusion data show a distinct deviation from Stokes-Einstein (SE) behavior. As the water content of the mixture is reduced, the translational diffusion rate decreases less rapidly than the increase in viscosity alone predicts until the water/TEGDE mole ratio of 7:1 is reached. Upon further reduction of water content, the translational diffusion tracks the viscosity. Comparison of the translational data with the rotational data and the hydrodynamic computations shows that the translational dynamics cannot be explained by a molecular shape change and that the low water fraction solutions are the ones that deviate from hydrodynamic behavior. A conjecture is presented as a possible explanation for the different behaviors of the rotational and translational dynamics.