Structure of electrolyte solutions at nonuniformly charged surfaces on a variety of length scales
- The structures of dilute electrolyte solutions close to nonuniformly charged planar substrates are systematically studied within the entire spectrum of microscopic to macroscopic length scales by means of a unified classical density functional theory approach. This is in contrast to previous investigations, which are applicable either to short or to long length scales. It turns out that interactions with microscopic ranges, e.g., due to the hard cores of the fluid molecules and ions, have a negligible influence on the formation of nonuniform lateral structures of the electrolyte solutions. This partly justifies the Debye-Hückel approximation schemes applied in previous studies of that system. In general, a coupling between the lateral and the normal fluid structures leads to the phenomenology that, upon increasing the distance from the substrate, fewer details of the lateral nonuniformities contribute to the fluid structure, such that ultimately only large-scale surface features remain relevant. It can be expected that this picture also applies to other fluids characterized by several length scales.
Author: | Markus Bier, Maximilian Mußotter, S. Dietrich |
---|---|
Persistent identifier: | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.106.054801 |
Parent Title (English): | Physical Review E |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of publication: | 2022 |
Publishing Institution: | Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Würzburg-Schweinfurt |
Release Date: | 2023/06/19 |
Tag: | Classical statistical mechanics, Electrostatic interactions, Interface & surface thermodynamics, Complex fluids, Ionic fluids, Liquid-solid interfaces, Polymers & Soft Matter, Statistical Physics |
Volume: | 106 |
Issue: | 5 |
First Page: | 054801 |
Institutes and faculty: | Fakultäten / Fakultät für angewandte Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften |