A replica reference interaction site model theory for a polar molecular liquid sorbed in a disordered microporous material with polar chemical groups

Abstract

We develop a replica generalization of the reference interaction site model (replica RISM) integral equation theory to describe the structure and thermodynamics of quenched-annealed systems comprising polar molecular species. It provides a successful approach to realistic models of molecular liquids, and properly allows for the effect of a quenched disordered matrix on the sorbed liquid. The description can be extended to an electrolyte solution in a disordered material containing charged chemical functionalities that determine its adsorption character. The replica reference interaction site model (RISM) equations are complemented with the hypernetted chain (HNC) closure and its partial linearization (PLHNC), adequate to ionic and polar molecular liquids. In these approximations, the excess chemical potentials are derived in a closed analytical form. We extend the description to a quenched-annealed system with soft-core interaction potentials between all species, in which the liquid and matrix equilibrium distributions are characterized in general by two different temperatures. The replica RISM/PLHNC-HNC theory is applied to water sorbed in a quenched disordered microporous network of atoms associated into interconnected branched chains, with activating polar groups grafted to matrix chains. The results are in qualitative agreement with experiment for water confined in disordered materials.