The researchers have found changes of the hydration nano-wide pores of clothes as well. Their results can open the door for a new option for separation of eon and security security. The results were published in Nature Communications.
Studying the interaction between the arrangement of water molecules embedded in layered materials such as clay and the arrangement of ions in these materials has proven to be a great experimental challenge. But the researchers have used techniques used elsewhere to measure very small and nano-level molecular interactions to see these interactions for the first time.
Their research was published in Nature Communications on October 19. October 28, 2022.
Many things take place in the form of layers at the nanoscale. When dry, the clay looks like a series of pieces of paper stacked on top of each other, for example. However, when these hot objects meet water, the water can enter and be placed in the holes or holes – or, in particular, “pores” – between the layers.
Such “hydration” can also occur when water molecules or their building blocks, including a hydroxide ion (a negatively charged ion combining a single oxygen atom and a single hydrogen atom) are embedded in the crystal structure of the material. This type of material, a “hydrate”, is not necessarily “wet” even though water is now part of it. Hydration can also significantly change the structure and properties of the parent material.
In this “nanoconfinement“, the hydration process, that is, how the water molecules or their constituents organize themselves, determines the ability of the original material to store ions (atoms or groups of atoms and it is wrong).
This water or storage material means that these layered materials, from traditional clays to layer metal oxides – and, importantly, their relationship with water – have a wide range of applications, from clean water to storage of energy.
However, studying the relationship between this hydration structure and the ion structure in the ion storage process of these materials has proven to be a great challenge. Attempts to analyze how these hydration processes change during each movement of these ions (“ion transport”) are also more difficult.
Recent studies have shown that these water systems and their interaction with the insulating materials play an important role in giving the latter their high ion storage capacity, which depends and changes in water support levels. In the space between the layers, each space is not filled with ions filled with water instead, helping to soften the structure.
“In other words, the structure of water is sensitive to the structure of the interlayer ions,” said Katsuya Teshima, who is the author of the paper and the author of the paper in Supramaterials, Research Initiative Shinshu University. “And although this ion arrangement in many different crystals controls the number of ions that can be stored, such arrangements have so far rarely been analyzed systematically.”
Teshima’s team turned to a quartz crystal microbalance with energy dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) to aid them in their theoretical calculations. The QCM-D is essentially an instrument that functions as a balance that can measure very small quantities and molecular interactions at the nano level. The system can also measure small changes in energy loss.
The researchers used QCM-D to show for the first time that changes in the structure of water molecules embedded in the nanospaces of layered materials can be observed.
They did this by measuring the “power” of the elements. They studied layered double hydroxides (LDH) of a class of inorganic clays. They found that the hydration phase is linked to the strength of LDHs when the ion exchange reaction occurs (the exchange of one type of ion with a different type of ion and has the same change).
“In other words, any change in ion interaction comes from a change in the hydration process that occurs when ions are placed in the nanospace,” said Tomohito Sudare, co-author and current studies at the University of Tokyo plus.
In addition, the researchers found that the hydration structure strongly depends on the charge density (number of charges per unit volume) of the insulator. This in turn is what controls the storage capacity of the ion.
Researchers now hope to apply these measurement methods together with knowledge of ion hydration structure to design new techniques to improve the ion storage capacity of layered materials, potentially opening new avenues for ion separation and sustainable energy storage.
