Effect of hydrogen bond cooperativity on the behavior of water

Abstract

Four scenarios have been proposed for the low-temperature phase behavior of liquid water, each predicting different thermodynamics. The physical mechanism that leads to each is debated. Moreover, it is still unclear which of the scenarios best describes water, because there is no definitive experimental test. Here we address both open issues within the framework of a microscopic cell model by performing a study combining mean-field calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. We show that a common physical mechanism underlies each of the four scenarios, and that two key physical quantities determine which of the four scenarios describes water: (i) the strength of the directional component of the hydrogen bond and (ii) the strength of the cooperative component of the hydrogen bond. The four scenarios may be mapped in the space of these two quantities. We argue that our conclusions are model independent. Using estimates from experimental data for H-bond properties the model predicts that the low-temperature phase diagram of water exhibits a liquid-liquid critical point at positive pressure.anomalous liquids | liquid-liquid transition | liquid water | mean field | Monte Carlo simulations W ater's phase diagram is rich and complex: more than sixteen crystalline phases (1), and two or more glasses (2-4) have been reported. The liquid state also displays interesting behavior, such as the density maximum for 1 atm at 4°C. The volume fluctuations hðδV Þ 2 i, entropy fluctuations hðδSÞ 2 i, and cross fluctuations between volume and entropy hδV δSi, proportional to the magnitude of isothermal compressibility K T , isobaric specific heat C P , and isobaric thermal expansivity α P , respectively, show anomalous increases in magnitude upon cooling (5). Further, these quantities display an apparent divergence for 1 atm at −45°C (2), hinting at interesting phase behavior in the supercooled region.Microscopically, liquid water's anomalous behavior is understood as resulting from the tendency of neighboring molecules to form hydrogen (H) bonds upon cooling with a decrease of local potential energy, decrease of local entropy, and increase of local volume due to the formation of local open structures of bonded molecules. Different models include these H-bond features, but depending on the assumptions and approximations of each model, different conclusions are obtained for the low-T phase behavior. The relevant region of the bulk-liquid state cannot be probed experimentally, and none of the theories tested because crystallization of bulk water is unavoidable below the homogeneous nucleation temperature T H (−38°C at 1 atm). Four Scenarios for Supercooled WaterDue to the difficulty of obtaining experimental evidence, theoretical and numerical analyses are useful. Four separate scenarios for the pressure-temperature (P-T) phase diagram have been proposed: (I) The stability limit (SL) scenario (6) hypothesizes that the superheated liquid-gas spinodal at negative pressure reenters the positive P region below T H ðPÞ. In this view, the liq...

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