Molecular self-diffusion coefficient

P. Stilbs, Molecular self-diffusion coefficients in Fourier-transform nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometric analysis of complex mixtures. Anal Chem., 53 (1981) 2135-2137. 

Molecular self-diffusion coefficients are experimentally easily accessible and can be measured accurately with various techniques. However, the Fourier transform pulsed field gradient spin-echo NMR (FT PGSE NMR) approach has during the last decade proved to be superior to other approaches for several reasons. In this technique the displacement of nuclear spins in a controlled magnetic field gradient is monitored, and the contributions of different components are resolved by Fourier transformation of the NMR signal (spin echo). 

We note here also that, unlike collective diffusion coefficients, molecular self-diffusion coefficients are unaffected by critical effects, which is a significant advantage for systems with critical points, a typical situation in this context. We also note that self-diffusion studies are very general and that the NMR approach places little demand on the appearance of the sample (turbidity, color, rheology, etc.)... 

Measurement of diffusion using pulsed field gradient NMR (PFG-NMR) is a powerful analytical tool because it combines the high specificity and information content of NMR spectroscopy with the size selectivity of diffusion coefficients. PFG-NMR employs timescales of tens of ms and has a displacement sensitivity of the order of 100 nm. PFG-NMR can determine molecular self-diffusion coefficients in liquid phases down to a lower limit of 10 " m s Due to the combination of experimental convenience and straightforward interpretation, PFG-NMR has become the method of choice for studying translational diffusion. PFG-NMR experiments have been reported using H, H, Li, C, F and other nuclei. The time A over which PFG-NMR measurements are possible is limited. 

Micellization is a second-order or continuous type phase transition. Therefore, one observes continuous changes over the course of micelle fonnation. Many experimental teclmiques are particularly well suited for examining properties of micelles and micellar solutions. Important micellar properties include micelle size and aggregation number, self-diffusion coefficient, molecular packing of surfactant in the micelle, extent of surfactant ionization and counterion binding affinity, micelle collision rates, and many others. 

In the special case that A and B are similar in molecular weight, polarity, and so on, the self-diffusion coefficients of pure A and B will be approximately equal to the mutual diffusivity, D g. Second, when A and B are the less mobile and more mobile components, respectively, their self-diffusion coefficients can be used as rough lower and upper bounds of the mutual diffusion coefficient. That is, < D g < Dg g. Third, it is a common means for evaluating diffusion for gases at high pressure. Self-diffusion in liquids has been studied by many [Easteal AIChE]. 30, 641 (1984), Ertl and Dullien, AIChE J. 19, 1215 (1973), and Vadovic and Colver, AIChE J. 18, 1264 (1972)]. 

In a liquid that is in thermodynamic equilibrium and which contains only one chemical species, the particles are in translational motion due to thermal agitation. The term for this motion, which can be characterized as a random walk of the particles, is self-diffusion. It can be quantified by observing the molecular displacements of the single particles. The self-diffusion coefficient is introduced by the Einstein relationship... 

Following the general trend of looldng for a molecular description of the properties of matter, self-diffusion in liquids has become a key quantity for interpretation and modeling of transport in liquids [5]. Self-diffusion coefficients can be combined with other data, such as viscosities, electrical conductivities, densities, etc., in order to evaluate and improve solvodynamic models such as the Stokes-Einstein type [6-9]. From temperature-dependent measurements, activation energies can be calculated by the Arrhenius or the Vogel-Tamman-Fulcher equation (VTF), in order to evaluate models that treat the diffusion process similarly to diffusion in the solid state with jump or hole models [1, 2, 7]. 

From the molecular point of view, the self-diffusion coefficient is more important than the mutual diffusion coefficient, because the different self-diffusion coefficients give a more detailed description of the single chemical species than the mutual diffusion coefficient, which characterizes the system with only one coefficient. Owing to its cooperative nature, a theoretical description of mutual diffusion is expected to be more complex than one of self-diffusion [5]. Besides that, self-diffusion measurements are determinable in pure ionic liquids, while mutual diffusion measurements require mixtures of liquids. 

Self-diffusion coefficients are dynamic properties that can be easily obtained by molecular dynamics simulation. The properties are obtained from mean-square displacement by the Einstein equation ... 

X 10 cm by measuring molecularly dispersed water in toluene and by correcting for local viscosity differences between toluene and these microemulsions [36]. Values for Dfnic were taken as the observed self-diffusion coefficient for AOT. The apparent mole fraction of water in the continuous toluene pseudophases was then calculated from Eq. (1) and the observed water proton self-diffusion data of Fig. 9. These apparent mole fractions are illustrated in Fig. 10 (top) as a function of... 

NMR Self-Diffusion of Desmopressin. The NMR-diffusion technique (3,10) offers a convenient way to measure the translational self-diffusion coefficient of molecules in solution and in isotropic liquid crystalline phases. The technique is nonperturbing, in that it does not require the addition of foreign probe molecules or the creation of a concentration-gradient in the sample it is direct in that it does not involve any model dependent assumptions. Obstruction by objects much smaller than the molecular root-mean-square displacement during A (approx 1 pm), lead to a reduced apparent diffusion coefficient in equation (1) (10). Thus, the NMR-diffusion technique offers a fruitful way to study molecular interactions in liquids (11) and the phase structure of liquid crystalline phases (11,12). 

Fig. 8. Self-diffusion coefficients of polyethylene chains as a function of molecular mass. The measurements were carried out at the same value of the monomeric friction coefficient. (Reprinted with permission from [48]. Copyright 1987 American Chemical Society, Washington)...

Thus, for unbounded molecules, the mean-square displacement changes linearly with time. It is well known that the self-diffusion coefficient D in infinitely dilute solution is related to molecular size according to equation ... 

An important technical development of the PFG and STD experiments was introduced at the beginning of the 1990s the Diffusion Ordered Spectroscopy, that is DOSY.69 70 It provides a convenient way of displaying the molecular self-diffusion information in a bi-dimensional array, with the NMR spectrum in one dimension and the self-diffusion coefficient in the other. While the chemical-shift information is obtained by Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) of the time domain data, the diffusion information is obtained by an Inverse Laplace Transformation (ILT) of the signal decay data. The goal of DOSY experiment is to separate species spectroscopically (not physically) present in a mixture of compounds for this reason, DOSY is also known as "NMR chromatography."... 

While D issuing from these experiments is not strictly the diffusion coefficient of water per se, but rather that of H throughout the ensemble of environments in the hydration microstructure, these authors rationalized that it could in fact be identified with D at both high and low water contents. It should be appreciated that self-diffusion coefficients measured in this way reflect fundamental hopping events on a molecular scale. 

To date, D coefficients of carbohydrates established with the PFGSE approactf - " have been undertaken to (1) validate the theoretical self-diffusion coefficients calculated from MD trajectories, (2) demonstrate the complexation of lanthanide cations by sugars,(3) probe the geometry of a molecular capsule formed by electrostatic interactions between oppositely charged P-cyclodextrins, (4) study the influence of concentration and temperature dependence on the hydrodynamic properties of disaccharides, and (5) discriminate between extended and folded conformations of nucleotide-sugars. ... 

The concept of transport resistances localized in the outermost regions of NS crystals was introduced in order to explain the differences between intracrystalline self-diffusion coefficients obtained by n.m.r methods and diffusion coefficients derived from non-equilibrium experiments based on the assumption that Intracrystalline transport is rate-limiting. This concept has been discussed during the past decade, cf. the pioneering work [79-81] and the reviews [2,7,8,23,32,82]. Nowadays, one can state that surface barriers do not occur necessarily in sorption uptake by NS crystals, but they may occur if the cross-sections of the sorbing molecular species and the micropore openings become comparable. For indication of their significance, careful analysis of... 

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