Recently, Professor Ding Feng from the College of Materials and Energy at Shenzhen Technology University (provisional) and the team from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, collaborated with Professor Shin Hyung-jun's research team from the Department of New Materials Engineering at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea to develop a "single-ion control technique." The research team successfully observed the dissolution process of table salt at the atomic level and achieved control over the dissolution process of sodium chloride at the atomic level. The relevant research results were published in Nature Communications.
Salt, as one of the most common substances, exhibits extremely complex behavior during its dissolution process due to the behavior of charged ions. Traditional research methods can only measure the average properties of ions in solution and cannot precisely observe the behavior of individual ions. To address this challenge, the research team deposited single water molecules on a thin salt film only 2 to 3 atoms thick at -268.8 degrees Celsius and used a scanning tunneling microscope with atomic resolution to precisely control the movement of water molecules, observing the dissolution process of individual chloride ions in table salt.
Ding Feng explained that theoretical calculations and simulations play a crucial role in understanding the dynamic processes occurring on material surfaces. By precisely controlling the position and movement of water molecules, significant differences in interactions between sodium ions and chloride ions can be generated. Chloride ions, due to their higher polarizability, are more prone to react with water molecules than sodium ions, leading to selective dissolution. This finding not only reveals the micro-mechanism of ion dissolution but also provides possibilities for the design of new materials.
It is reported that this breakthrough discovery not only provides a new perspective for understanding the behavior of charged atoms in solution in theoretical terms but may also have a significant impact on the development of new materials in various applications such as batteries and semiconductors.
Related paper information: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46704-y
The image shows the process of salt dissolving in water at the atomic level, as depicted by the research team.
