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AQUEOUS ION TRANSPORT

Sticky when wet

Nature Chemistry volume 10, pages 376–377 (2018)Cite this article

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The aqueous hydronium cation diffuses about twice as fast as the aqueous hydroxide anion in liquid water, but the origin of this behaviour has been unclear. Now, state-of-the-art simulations provide an explanation for this long-standing conundrum.

In liquid water, H2O molecules are in equilibrium with their dissociation fragments hydronium (H3O+) and hydroxide (OH–) and the motion of these ions is at the heart of chemical reactions in aqueous solution. How they are solvated by, and diffuse within, water’s hydrogen-bonded network has been studied since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and our contemporary understanding is that their motion is boosted by proton jumps between the ions and water molecules; hydronium diffuses roughly twice as fast as hydroxide (see for example, refs 1,2,–3). However, why diffusion of the positively charged ion is speedier than that of its negative counterpart has remained a mystery. Now, however, writing in Nature Chemistry, Roberto Car, Xifan Wu and colleagues provide an explanation4. They suggest, on the basis of state-of-the-art computer simulations, that hydronium diffusion occurs through concerted proton-transfer events, whereas hydroxide diffusion happens mainly in a slower step-wise manner.

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Fig. 1: Aqueous ion transport.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany

    Ji Chen

  2. Thomas Young Centre, London Centre for Nanotechnology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK

    Angelos Michaelides

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  1. Ji Chen
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  2. Angelos Michaelides
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Correspondence to Ji Chen or Angelos Michaelides.

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Chen, J., Michaelides, A. Sticky when wet. Nature Chem 10, 376–377 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-018-0024-9

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