Structure of aqueous sodium acetate solutions by X-Ray scattering and density functional theory

Abstract

Abstract The structure of aq. sodium acetate solution (CH3COONa, NaOAc) was studied by X-ray scattering and density function theory (DFT). For the first hydrated layer of Na+, coordination number (CN) between Na+ and O(W, I) decreases from 5.02 ± 0.85 at 0.976 mol/L to 3.62 ± 1.21 at 4.453 mol/L. The hydration of carbonyl oxygen (OC) and hydroxyl oxygen (OOC) of CH3COO− were investigated separately and the OC shows a stronger hydration bonds comparing with OOC. With concentrations increasing, the hydration shell structures of CH3COO− are not affected by the presence of large number of ions, each CH3COO− group binds about 6.23 ± 2.01 to 7.35 ± 1.73 water molecules, which indicates a relatively strong interaction between CH3COO− and water molecules. The larger uncertainty of the CN of Na+ and OC(OOC) reflects the relative looseness of Na-OC and Na-OOC ion pairs in aq. NaOAc solutions, even at the highest concentration (4.453 mol/L), suggesting the lack of contact ion pair (CIP) formation. In aq. NaOAc solutions, the so called “structure breaking” property of Na+ and CH3COO− become effective only for the second hydration sphere of bulk water. The DFT calculations of CH3COONa (H2O)n=5–7 clusters suggest that the solvent-shared ion pair (SIP) structures appear at n = 6 and become dominant at n = 7, which is well consistent with the result from X-ray scattering.