Inner and Subsurface Distribution of Water and Ions in Weakly and Highly Hydrophilic Uncharged Nanoporous Materials: A Molecular Dynamics Study of a Confined NaI Electrolyte Solution

The distribution of water and ions in nanoporous membranes, in particular close to their surfaces with external reservoirs, is investigated by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using classical polarizable force fields. A sodium iodide (NaI) aqueous solution is considered in uncharged weakly hydrophilic (WH) and highly hydrophilic (HH) nanoporous materials modeled by a single truncated nanopore in contact with two reservoirs. In the inner part of the nanopore, the spatial distribution of water and ions is obtained by coupling semi-infinitesimal longitudinal and semi-infinitesimal radial descriptions. In the HH material, in contrast with the WH material, species are no longer uniformly distributed in the inner nanopore and water molecules are distributed in a nearly frozen axially periodic corona-like structure which leads to the formation of ionic tunnels. In the reservoirs, water molecules and ions attracted by the membrane surface create a necking of the confined solution which acts as a barrier at the entrance of the nanopore. In the WH nanopore subsurface, close to the surface of the membrane, the species distribution is analogous to the interface distribution between an aqueous electrolyte solution and air. In the HH nanopore subsurface, this distribution is modulated by the water corona-like structure. These results provide useful information for predicting properties of nanoporous membranes, in particular the drastic reduction of diffusion coefficients in HH materials, and give a guide to designing synthetic membranes for applications in nanofiltration, etc