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A b initio molecular orbital pair potentials for the interaction of Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions with H2O are reported. Molecular dynamics calculations of the static structure of the solvation shell of Fe2+ and Fe3+ in water using the ab initio pair potentials gives physically incorrect results, i.e., the coordination numbers are eight instead of six as observed experimentally. This problem has also been encountered by other workers for divalent transition metal ions in water. By computing three-body energies from the interaction of two water molecules with the cations, we show that the origin of the problem is most likely in the assumption of the additivity of the pair potentials, i.e., neglect of many-body forces. Empirical potentials are reported which take approximate account of the three-body forces and give coordination numbers of six for both Fe2+ and Fe3+ in water.

We have simulated a slab of water with two-dimensional periodic boundary conditions between two metallic walls. The entire compliment of charges, arising from periodic reproductions and from classical images in the metal, are included explicitly by mapping onto a problem with three-dimensional periodicity which is handled by usual Ewald summation methods. Results are presented for charged and uncharged surfaces, permitting an estimate of the differential capacitance arising from the layer of water near the walls. The estimate is about a factor of 2 smaller than the observed differential capacitance of metal–aqueous electrolyte interfaces.

We describe a molecular dynamics model for dissociable, polarizable water. The model, which describes both the static and dynamic properties of real water quite reasonably, contains the following features: Self-consistent local fields are calculated in an extension of an earlier algorithm in which the dipole moments of the water are treated as dynamical variables. An intramolecular three-body potential assures that the molecular properties of water are in agreement with experiment. Ewald methods are used to take account of monopole–dipole and dipole–dipole as well as monopole–monopole interactions. The model was optimized using a Monte Carlo procedure in the parameter space which is described.

The lithium silicates have attracted scientific interest due to their potential use as high-temperature sorbents for CO2 capture. The electronic properties and thermodynamic stabilities of lithium silicates with different Li2O/SiO2 ratios (Li2O, Li8SiO6, Li4SiO4, Li6Si2O7, Li2SiO3, Li2Si2O5, Li2Si3O7, and α-SiO2) have been investigated by combining first-principles density functional theory with lattice phonon dynamics. All these lithium silicates examined are insulators with band-gaps larger than 4.5 eV. By decreasing the Li2O/SiO2 ratio, the first valence bandwidth of the corresponding lithium silicate increases. Additionally, by decreasing the Li2O/SiO2 ratio, the vibrational frequencies of the corresponding lithium silicates shift to higher frequencies. Based on the calculated energetic information, their CO2 absorption capabilities were extensively analyzed through thermodynamic investigations on these absorption reactions. We found that by increasing the Li2O/SiO2 ratio when going from Li2Si3O7 to Li8SiO6, the corresponding lithium silicates have higher CO2 capture capacity, higher turnover temperatures and heats of reaction, and require higher energy inputs for regeneration. Based on our experimentally measured isotherms of the CO2 chemisorption by lithium silicates, we found that the CO2 capture reactions are two-stage processes: (1) a superficial reaction to form the external shell composed of Li2CO3 and a metal oxide or lithium silicate secondary phase and (2) lithium diffusion from bulk to the surface with a simultaneous diffusion of CO2 into the shell to continue the CO2 chemisorption process. The second stage is the rate determining step for the capture process. By changing the mixing ratio of Li2O and SiO2, we can obtain different lithium silicate solids which exhibit different thermodynamic behaviors. Based on our results, three mixing scenarios are discussed to provide general guidelines for designing new CO2 sorbents to fit practical needs.

Study of the electrical conductances of a series of ultrathin Bi films as a function of increasing thickness has revealed behavior which can be correlated with the onset of superconductivity, even in the insulating state. The conductances of these films scale empirically with a single parameter which falls to zero when the films become superconductive. These observations suggest a direct transition between insulating and superconducting behavior. This transition occurs at a normal-state sheet resistance close to the quantum resistance for pairs, R q =h/4e 2 .

We present a clear and rigorous derivation of the Ewald-like method for calculation of the electrostatic energy of the systems infinitely periodic in two-dimensions and of finite size in the third dimension (slabs). We have generalized this method originally developed by Rhee et al. [Phys. Rev. B 40, 36(1989)] to account for charge-dipole and dipole-dipole interactions and therefore made it suitable for treatment of polarizable systems. This method has the advantage over exact methods of being significantly faster and therefore appropriate for large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. It however involves a Taylor expansion which has to be demonstrated to be of sufficient order. The method was extensively benchmarked against the exact methods by Leckner and Parry. We found it necessary to increase the order of the multipole expansion from 4 (as in original work by Rhee et al.) to 6. In this case the method is adequate for aspect ratios (thickness/shortest side length of the unit cell) ≤ 0.5. Molecular dynamics simulations using the transferable/polarizable model by Rustad et al. were applied to study the surface relaxation of the nonhydroxylated, hydroxylated, and solvated surfaces of α-Fe2O3 (hematite). We find that our nonhydroxylated structures and energies are in good agreement with previous LDA calculations on α-alumina by Manassidis et al. [Surf. Sci. Lett. 285, L517, 1993]. Using the results of molecular dynamics simulations of solvated interfaces, we define end-member hydroxylated-hydrated states for the surfaces which are used in energy minimization calculations. We find that hydration has a small effect on the surface structure, but that hydroxylation has a significant effect. Our calculations, both for gas-phase and solutionphase adsorption, predict a greater amount of hydroxylation for the α-Fe2O3 (012) surface than for the (001) surface. Our simulations also indicate the presence of four-fold coordinated iron ions on the (001) surface.

We describe experiments on the temperature dependence of the rate of the ferrous-ferric electron transfer reaction at a gold electrode and compare them with a detailed molecular dynamics simulation which is used to predict the rate. We find from the experiments that the temperature dependence of the rate has the Arrhenius form over the temperature range from 25 to 275~ and that the transfer coefficient is independent of temperature in this range. The molecular dynamics simulations are used in two ways to extract activation energies and transfer coefficients for comparison with experiment. In one of these methods, we assume parabolic dependence of the energies for the product and reactant in a reaction coordinate which is not specified a priori. In the other method, we use a quantum mechanical calculation extrapolated from the very short molecular dynamics time scale to times characteristic of the electron transfer rate. The assumption of parabolic dependence of the energies gives an estimate for the activation energy which is consistent with experiment. The transfer coefficient calculated using this assumption is also consistent with experiment. The activation energy and the transfer coefficient from the quantum mechanical calculation are both lower than the experimental values. The quantum mechanical method, together with a molecular orbital calculation of the electron transfer matrix element, permits a theoretical estimate of the absolute value of the rate, which is also compared with the experimental result. These results show that the ferrous-ferric reaction, which is a single-step outer-sphere charge-transfer reaction, follows the classical Butler-Volmer equation at temperatures up to 275~ and that earlier results on other reactions giving a temperature dependent transfer coefficient are likely to arise from elementary steps other than outer-sphere charge transfer.