The mean ionic activity coefficients of aqueous NaCl solutions of varying concentrations at 298.15 K and 1 bar have been obtained from molecular dynamics simulations by gradually turning on the interactions of an ion pair inserted into the solution. Several common non-polarizable water and ion models have been used in the simulations. Gibbs-Duhem equation calculations of the thermodynamic activity of water are used to confirm the thermodynamic consistency of the mean ionic activity coefficients. While the majority of model combinations predict the correct trends in mean ionic activity coefficients, they overestimate their values at high salt concentrations. The solubility predictions also suffer from inaccuracies, with all models underpredicting the experimental values, some by large factors. These results point to the need for further ion and water model development.

The mean ionic activity coefficients of aqueous KCl, NaF, NaI, and NaCl solutions of varying concentrations have been obtained from molecular dynamics simulations following a recently developed methodology based on gradual insertions of salt molecules [Z. Mester and A. Z. Panagiotopoulos, J. Chem. Phys. 142, 044507 (2015)]. The non-polarizable ion models of Weerasinghe and Smith [J. Chem. Phys. 119, 11342 (2003)], Gee et al. [J. Chem. Theory Comput. 7, 1369 (2011)], Reiser et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 140, 044504 (2014)], and Joung and Cheatham [J. Phys. Chem. B 112, 9020 (2008)] were used along with the extended simple point charge (SPC/E) water model [Berendsen et al., J. Phys. Chem. 91, 6269 (1987)] in the simulations. In addition to the chemical potentials in solution used to obtain the activity coefficients, we also calculated the chemical potentials of salt crystals and used them to obtain the solubility of these alkali halide models in SPC/E water. The models of Weerasinghe and Smith [J. Chem. Phys. 119, 11342 (2003)] and Gee et al. [J. Chem. Theory Comput. 7, 1369 (2011)] provide excellent predictions of the mean ionic activity coefficients at 298.15 K and 1 bar, but significantly underpredict or overpredict the solubilities. The other two models generally predicted the mean ionic activity coefficients only qualitatively. With the exception of NaF for which the solubility is significantly overpredicted, the model of Joung and Cheatham predicts salt solubilities that are approximately 40%-60% of the experimental values. The models of Reiser et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 140, 044504 (2014)] make good predictions for the NaCl and NaI solubilities, but significantly underpredict the solubilities for KCl and NaF. We also tested the transferability of the models to temperatures much higher than were used to parametrize them by performing simulations for NaCl at 373.15 K and 1 bar, and at 473.15 K and 15.5 bar. All models overpredict the drop in the values of mean ionic activity coefficients with increased temperature seen in experiments. The present results, together with earlier calculations for a number of models for NaCl aqueous solutions at 298.15 K, point to the strong need for development of improved intermolecular potential models for classical simulations of electrolyte solutions.

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Molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations were performed to obtain thermodynamic and transport properties of the binary H2O + NaCl system using the polarizable force fields of Kiss and Baranyai ( J. Chem. Phys. 2013 , 138 , 204507 and 2014 , 141 , 114501 ). In particular, liquid densities, electrolyte and crystal chemical potentials of NaCl, salt solubilities, mean ionic activity coefficients, vapor pressures, vapor-liquid interfacial tensions, and viscosities were obtained as functions of temperature, pressure, and salt concentration. We compared the performance of the polarizable force fields against fixed-point-charge (nonpolarizable) models. Most of the properties of interest are better represented by the polarizable models, which also remain physically realistic at elevated temperatures.

The dynamics and linear stability of a liquid film flowing over a locally heated surface are studied using a long-wave lubrication analysis. The temperature gradient at the leading edge of the heater induces a gradient in surface tension that opposes the gravitationally driven flow and leads to the formation of a pronounced capillary ridge. The resulting free-surface shapes are computed, and their stability to spanwise perturbations is analyzed for a range of Marangoni numbers, substrate inclination angles, and temperature profiles. Instability is predicted above a critical Marangoni number for a finite band of wave numbers separated from zero, which is consistent with published results from experiment and direct numerical simulation. An energy analysis is used to gain insight into the effect of inclination angle on the instability. Because the spatial nonuniformity of the base state gives rise to nonnormal linearized operators that govern the evolution of perturbations, a nonmodal, transient analysis is used to determine the maximum amplification of small perturbations to the film. The structure of optimal perturbations of different wave numbers is computed to elucidate the regions of the film that are most sensitive to perturbations, which provides insight into ways to stabilize the flow. The results of this analysis are contrasted to those for noninertial coating flows over substrates with topographical features, which exhibit similar capillary ridges but are strongly stable to perturbations.