Molecular dynamics of the interfacial solution structure of alkali-halide electrolytes at graphene electrodes

The interactions of graphene electrodes with aqueous solutions of electrolytes play important roles in many technologies such as capacitive deionisation. Particularly important is the surface adsorption of ions due to the electric potential of the electrode. In this paper, we have studied structural changes in several prototypical aqueous solutions of electrolytes (NaCl, KCl, and LiCl) in contact with graphene induced by its either positive or negative electric charge, under ambient conditions. We have carried out molecular-dynamics simulations using the most accurate interaction models available. We have analysed the solution structure using an advanced analysis of the intermolecular bonding, and also standard properties such as density and charge density profiles, electrostatic potential, and screening functions. Our results show that the graphene charge has nearly no translational effect on water molecules, whereas it significantly changes their orientations, and the effect on ions' distributions differ from solution to solution. Larger ions, whose hydration shells are weaker, are affected directly in an intuitive fashion, i.e., cations are attracted by negatively charged graphene and vice versa, whereas effects on smaller ions may vary and may be even counterintuitive, e.g., the number of chlorine anions in aqueous KCl in contact with negatively charged graphene is greater when compared to neutral graphene. The surplus of chlorine anions adsorbed on a positively charged electrode strengthens the structure of water and counterintuitively rotates the water molecules in the second layer pointing their electric dipoles preferentially to the electrode. The surplus of cations due to a negatively charged electrode is accompanied by a weakening of the water structure in the case of larger ions, whereas in the case of the lithium cation the structure is stronger due to the direct effects of the graphene charge on water molecules. Regardless of the graphene charge, the total number of intermolecular bonds connected with a single water molecule is nearly independent of the distance from the graphene surface and the same applies to the number of intermolecular bonds connected with a single ion, which means that whenever a particle loses an intermolecular bond it nearly always forms a new bond as a compensation. (C) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.