Formic and acetic acid pK_a values increase under nanoconfinement.

ABSTRACT: Organic acids are prevalent in the environment and their acidity and the corresponding dissociation constants can change under varying environmental conditions. The impact of nanoconfinement (when acids are confined within nanometer-scale domains) on physicochemical properties of chemical species is poorly understood and is an emerging field of study. By combining infrared and Raman spectroscopies with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we quantified the effect of nanoconfinement in silica nanopores on one of the fundamental chemical reactions-the dissociation of organic acids. The pK_a of formic and acetic acids confined within cylindrical silica nanopores with 4 nm diameters were measured. MD models were constructed to calculate the shifts in the pK_a

SUBMITTER: Sit I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10390803 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature