Solvation and Ion Pair Association in Aqueous Metal Sulfates: Interpretation of NDIS raw data by isobaric-isothermal molecular dynamics simulation.

Abstract

We analyzed the solvation behavior of aqueous lithium, nickel, and ytterbium sulfates at ambient conditions in terms of the relevant radial distributions functions and the corresponding first-order difference of the sulfur-site neutronweighted distribution functions generated by isothermal-isobaric molecular dynamics simulation. We determined of the partial contributions to the neutronweighted distribution functions, to identify the main peaks, and the effect of the contact ion-pair configuration on the resulting H ! S coordination number. Finally, we assessed the extent of the ion-pair formation according to Poirier- DeLap formalism and highlighted the significant increase of the ion-pair association exhibited by these salts with cation charge.