Universal features in lifetime distribution of clusters in hydrogen bonding liquids

TL;DR

This study uncovers a universal hierarchy of hydrogen bonding lifetimes in liquids like water and alcohols, revealing three distinct timescales linked to cluster topology, which differ fundamentally from non-hydrogen bonding liquids.

Contribution

It identifies a universal hierarchy of three specific lifetime types in hydrogen bonding liquids, related to cluster topology and independent of bonding criteria.

Findings

Hydrogen bonding liquids exhibit three hierarchical lifetime types.

The dominant lifetime depends on bonding distance and relates to pairs.

Secondary and tertiary lifetimes are topology-dependent and cluster-related.

Abstract

Hydrogen bonding liquids, typically water and alcohols, are known to form labile structures (network, chains, etc...), hence the lifetime of such structures is an important microscopic parameter, which can be calculated in computer simulations. Since these cluster entities are mostly statistical in nature, one would expect that, in the short time regime, their lifetime distribution would be a broad Gaussian-like function of time, with a single maximum representing their mean lifetime, and weakly dependent on criteria such as the bonding distance and angle, much similarly to non-hydrogen bonding simple liquids, while the long time part is known to have some power law dependence. Unexpectedly, all the hydrogen bonding liquids studied herein, namely water and alcohols, display highly hierarchic three types of specific lifetimes, in the sub-picosecond range 0-0.5ps The dominant lifetime very strongly depends on the bonding distance criterion and is related to hydrogen bonded pairs. This mode is absent in non-H-bonding simple liquids. The secondary and tertiary mean lifetimes are related to clusters, and are nearly independent on the bonding criterion. Of these two lifetimes, only the first one can be related to that of simple liquids, which poses the question of the nature of the third life time. The study of acohols reveals that this 3rd lifetime is related to the topology of H-bonded clusters, and that its distribution may be also affected by the alkyl tail surrounding "bath". This study reveals that hydrogen bonding liquids have a universal hierarchy of hydrogen bonding lifetimes with a timescale regularity across very different types, and which depend on the topology of the cluster structures