Water lattice models

There is, of course, a mass of rather direct evidence on orientation at the liquid-vapor interface, much of which is at least implicit in this chapter and in Chapter IV. The methods of statistical mechanics are applicable to the calculation of surface orientation of assymmetric molecules, usually by introducing an angular dependence to the inter-molecular potential function (see Refs. 67, 68, 77 as examples). Widom has applied a mean-held approximation to a lattice model to predict the tendency of AB molecules to adsorb and orient perpendicular to the interface between phases of AA and BB [78]. In the case of water, a molecular dynamics calculation concluded that the surface dipole density corresponded to a tendency for surface-OH groups to point toward the vapor phase [79]. 

As early as 1969, Wlieeler and Widom [73] fomuilated a simple lattice model to describe ternary mixtures. The bonds between lattice sites are conceived as particles. A bond between two positive spins corresponds to water, a bond between two negative spins corresponds to oil and a bond coimecting opposite spins is identified with an amphiphile. The contact between hydrophilic and hydrophobic units is made infinitely repulsive hence each lattice site is occupied by eitlier hydrophilic or hydrophobic units. These two states of a site are described by a spin variable s., which can take the values +1 and -1. Obviously, oil/water interfaces are always completely covered by amphiphilic molecules. The Hamiltonian of this Widom model takes the form... 

Lattice models have been studied in mean field approximation, by transfer matrix methods and Monte Carlo simulations. Much interest has focused on the occurrence of a microemulsion. Its location in the phase diagram between the oil-rich and the water-rich phases, its structure and its wetting properties have been explored [76]. Lattice models reproduce the reduction of the surface tension upon adsorption of the amphiphiles and the progression of phase equilibria upon increasmg the amphiphile concentration. Spatially periodic (lamellar) phases are also describable by lattice models. Flowever, the structure of the lattice can interfere with the properties of the periodic structures. 

A particularly simple lattice model has been utilized by Harris and Rice [129] and subsequently by Stettin et al. [130] to simulate Langmuir mono-layers at the air/water interface chains on a cubic lattice which are confined to a plane at one end. Haas et al. have used the bond-fluctuation model, a more sophisticated chain model which is common in polymer simulations, to study the same system [131]. Amphiphiles are modeled as short chains of monomers which occupy a cube of eight sites on a cubic lattice and are connected by bonds of variable length [132], At high surface coverage, Haas et al. report various lattice artefacts. They conclude that the study... 

Lattice models for bulk mixtures have mostly been designed to describe features which are characteristic of systems with low amphiphile content. In particular, models for ternary oil/water/amphiphile systems are challenged to reproduce the reduction of the interfacial tension between water and oil in the presence of amphiphiles, and the existence of a structured disordered phase (a microemulsion) which coexists with an oil-rich and a water-rich phase. We recall that a structured phase is one in which correlation functions show oscillating behavior. Ordered lamellar phases have also been studied, but they are much more influenced by lattice artefacts here than in the case of the chain models. 

Even though the basic idea of the Widom model is certainly very appealing, the fact that it ignores the possibihty that oil/water interfaces are not saturated with amphiphiles is a disadvantage in some respect. The influence of the amphiphiles on interfacial properties cannot be studied in principle in particular, the reduction of the interfacial tension cannot be calculated. In a sense, the Widom model is not only the first microscopic lattice model, but also the first random interface model configurations are described entirely by the conformations of their amphiphilic sheets. 

More recently suggested models for bulk systems treat oil, water and amphiphiles on equal footing and place them all on lattice sites. They are thus basically lattice models for ternary fluids, which are generalized to capture the essential properties of the amphiphiles. Oil, water, and amphiphiles are represented by Ising spins 5 = -1,0 and +1. If one considers all possible nearest-neighbor interactions between these three types of particle, one obtains a total number of three independent interaction parameters, and... 

FIG. 13 Phase diagram of a vector lattice model for a balanced ternary amphiphilic system in the temperature vs surfactant concentration plane. W -I- O denotes a region of coexistence between oil- and water-rich phases, D a disordered phase, Lj an ordered phase which consists of alternating oil, amphiphile, water, and again amphi-phile sheets, and L/r an incommensurate lamellar phase (not present in mean field calculations). The data points are based on simulations at various system sizes on an fee lattice. (From Matsen and Sullivan [182]. Copyright 1994 APS.)... 

A. Ciach, J. S. Hoye, G. Stell. Microscopic model for microemulsion. II. Behavior at low temperatures and critical point. J Chem Phys 90 1222-1228, 1989. A. Ciach. Phase diagram and structure of the bicontinuous phase in a three dimensional lattice model for oil-water-surfactant mixtures. J Chem Phys 95 1399-1408, 1992. 

Among MC lattice models of the double layer, it is also worth mentioning the work of Nazmutdinov et al. (1988), who used a lattice model involving two mono-layers of water molecules on the surface of an electrode, forming a hexagonal close-packed array. The interaction of each water molecule in contact with the metal surface (assumed to be Hg) was taken from quantum-mechanical calculations. Information was obtained concerning the relative numbers of molecules with different numbers of hydrogen bonds, and it was concluded that the hypothesis of an icelike state of water in a monolayer on Hg is rather unlikely. 

Given the character of the water-water interaction, particularly its strength, directionality and saturability, it is tempting to formulate a lattice model, or a cell model, of the liquid. In such models, local structure is the most important of the factors determining equilibrium properties. This structure appears when the molecular motion is defined relative to the vertices of a virtual lattice that spans the volume occupied by the liquid. In general, the translational motion of a molecule is either suppressed completely (static lattice model), or confined to the interior of a small region defined by repulsive interactions with surrounding molecules (cell model). Clearly, the nature of these models is such that they describe best those properties which are structure determined, and describe poorly those properties which, in some sense, depend on the breakdown of positional and orientational correlations between molecules. 

Recently, similar but not identical, lattice models of water have been proposed by Fleming and Gibbs 61) and by Bell ezK In both models molecules are restricted to occupation of the sites of a body centered cubic array. The fundamental tetra-hedrality of the water-water interaction is accounted for in that four noncontiguous nearest neighbor points of the total of eight nearest neighbor points of a... 

The addition of water to solutions of PBT dissolved in a strong acid (MSA) causes phase separation in qualitative accord with that predicted by the lattice model of Flory (17). In particular, with the addition of a sufficient amount of water the phase separation produces a state that appears to be a mixture of a concentrated ordered phase and a dilute disordered phase. If the amount of water has not led to deprotonation (marked by a color change) then the birefringent ordered phase may be reversibly transformed to an isotropic disordered phase by increased temperature. This behavior is in accord with phase separation in the wide biphasic gap predicted theoretically (e.g., see Figure 8). The phase separation appears to occur spinodally, with the formation of an ordered, concentrated phase that would exist with a fibrillar morphology. This tendency may be related to the appearance of fibrillar morphology in fibers and films of such polymers prepared by solution processing. 

Mixture Models Broken-Down Ice Structures. Historically, the mixture models have received considerably more attention than the uniformist, average models. Somewhat arbitrarily, we divide these as follows (1) broken-down ice lattice models (i.e., ice-like structural units in equilibrium with monomers) (2) cluster models (clusters in equilibrium with monomers) (3) models based on clathrate-like cages (again in equilibrium with monomers). In each case, it is understood that at least two species of water exist—namely, a bulky species representing some... 

Starting from the mixture model, the structural behavior of water in the presence of dissolved simple ions is discussed from the point of view of defect formation and lattice distortions at interfaces. The observed behavior of the ions and the water lattice is applied to a number of unsolved biological problems in an attempt to elucidate the specific interface phenomena that are characteristic of such systems. 

As a convenient starting point for the model, the grand canonical partition function is developed from the canonical partition function, to incorporate the above assumptions. The canonical partition function is written as the product of three factors the water lattice, the guest distribution within the cages, and the states of the guest molecules themselves assuming that they behave as ideal gas molecules, as follows ... 

Figure 2. Comparison of the experimental data of Pemberton and Mash (22) for the ethanol-water binary at 323, 343, and 363 K with the lattice model predictions with z = 10, Vj, = 9.75 x 10- nrmole- and = 0.085.

A lattice model for an electrolyte solution is proposed, which assumes that the hydrated ion occupies ti (i = 1, 2) sites on a water lattice. A lattice site is available to an ion i only if it is free (it is occupied by a water molecule, which does not hydrate an ion) and has also at least (i, - 1) first-neighbors free. The model accounts for the correlations between the probabilities of occupancy of adjacent sites and is used to calculate the excluded volume (lattice site exclusion) effect on the double layer interactions. It is shown that at high surface potentials the thickness of the double layer generated near a charged surface is increased, when compared to that predicted by the Poisson-Boltzmann treatment. However, at low surface potentials, the diffuse double layer can be slightly compressed, if the hydrated co-ions are larger than the hydrated counterions. The finite sizes of the ions can lead to either an increase or even a small decrease of the double layer repulsion. The effect can be strongly dependent on the hydration numbers of the two species of ions. 

A modality to overcome these difficulties was proposed earlier by Ruckenstein and Schiby,4 who considered that the ions of different kinds (i = 1, 2) occupy r, sites on a water lattice. Since the size of the cell of the water lattice is independent of the size of the ions, the model can be easily extended to any number of ions of different kinds. To compare the prediction of various models, let us first consider the case in which the ions of different kinds have the same volume (ri = T2 = r). 

The purpose of this paper is to calculate the electrochemical potential and the double layer repulsion using a lattice model, applicable to hydrated ions of different sizes, that accounts for the correlation between the probabilities of occupancy of adjacent sites. As the other lattice models,4-7 this model accounts only for the steric, excluded volume effects due to ionic hydration. In feet, short-ranged electrostatic interactions between the ions and the dipoles of the water molecules, as well as the van der Waals interactions between the ions and the water molecules, are responsible for the formation of the hydrated ions. The long-ranged interactions between charges are taken into account through an electrostatic (mean field) potential. The correlation between ions is expected to be negligible for sufficiently low ionic concentrations. 

In the model of Ruckenstein and Schiby, the ion can replace a water molecule on the lattice ofwater only if the site and (r — 1) of its first neighbor sites are free (i.e., occupied by water molecules which do not hydrate other ions) the probability of occupation of any of the t sites was taken to be the same.4 Here we will account to some extent for the correlation between the probabilities of occupancy of adjacent sites, assuming a coordination number w in the water lattice. 

The most expensive part of a simulation of a system with explicit solvent is the computation of the long-range interactions because this scales as Consequently, a model that represents the solvent properties implicitly will considerably reduce the number of degrees of freedom of the system and thus also the computational cost. A variety of implicit water models has been developed for molecular simulations [56-60]. Explicit solvent can be replaced by a dipole-lattice model representation [60] or a continuum Poisson-Boltzmann approach [61], or less accurately, by a generalised Bom (GB) method [62] or semi-empirical model based on solvent accessible surface area [59]. Thermodynamic properties can often be well represented by such models, but dynamic properties suffer from the implicit representation. The molecular nature of the first hydration shell is important for some systems, and consequently, mixed models have been proposed, in which the solute is immersed in an explicit solvent sphere or shell surrounded by an implicit solvent continuum. A boundary potential is added that takes into account the influence of the van der Waals and the electrostatic interactions [63-67]. 

Highly ordered lamellar gel microstructures are formed by certain surfactants and mixtures of a surfactant and long-chain fatty alcohols in water. Using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), an ordered lamellar stack lattice model was proposed for the gel formed by 10% w/w cetostearyl alcohol containing 0.5% cetri-mide surfactant. In contrast, the microstructure of a Brij 96 gel depends on the surfactants concentration. A hexagonal liquid-crystalline gel structure was... 

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