How Ions Affect the Structure of Water: A Combined Raman Spectroscopy and Multivariate Curve Resolution Study

Abstract

Raman spectroscopy in combination with multivariate curve resolution (Raman-MCR) is used to explore the interaction between water and various kosmotropic and chaotropic anions. Raman-MCR of aqueous Na-salt (NaI, NaBr, NaNO3, Na2SO4, and Na3PO4) solutions provides solute-correlated Raman spectra (SC-spectra) of water. The SC-spectra predominantly bear the vibrational characteristics of water in the hydration shell of anions, because Na(+)-cation has negligible effect on the OH stretch band of water. The SC-spectra for the chaotropic I(-), Br(-), and NO3(-) anions and even for the kosmotropic SO4(2-) anion resemble the Raman spectrum of isotopically diluted water (H2O/D2O = 1/19; v/v) whose OH stretch band is largely comprised by the response of vibrationally decoupled OH oscillators. On the other hand, the SC-spectrum for the kosmotropic PO4(3-) anion is quite similar to the Raman spectrum of H2O (bulk). Comparison of the peak positions of SC-spectra and the Raman spectrum of isotopically diluted water suggests that the hydrogen bond strength of water in the hydration shell of SO4(2-) is comparable to that of the isotopically diluted water, but that in the hydration shell of I(-), Br(-), and NO3(-) anions is weaker than that of the latter. Analysis of integrated area of component bands of the SC-spectra reveals ∼80% reduction of the delocalization of vibrational modes (intermolecular coupling and Fermi resonance) of water in the hydration shell of I(-), Br(-), NO3(-), and SO4(2-) anions. In the case of trivalent PO4(3-), the vibrational delocalization is presumably reduced and the corresponding decrease in spectral response at ∼3250 cm(-1) is compensated by the increased signal of strongly hydrogen bonded (but decoupled) water species in the hydration shell. The peak area-averaged wavenumber of the SC-spectrum increases as PO4(3-) < SO4(2-) < NO3(-) < Br(-) < I(-) and indeed suggests strong hydrogen bonding of water in the hydration shell of PO4(3-) anion.