Structure and charging kinetics of electrical double layers at large electrode voltages

Clint Cagle, Guang Feng, Rui Qiao, Jingsong Huang, Bobby G. Sumpter, Vincent Meunier

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

The structure and charging kinetics of electrical double layers (EDLs) at interfaces of NaCl solutions and planar electrodes are studied by molecular dynamics (MD) and Poisson-Nernst-Planck (PNP) simulations. Based on the MD results and prior experimental data, we show that counterion packing in planar EDLs does not reach the steric limit at electrode voltages below 1 V. In addition, we demonstrate that a PNP model, when complemented with a Stern model, can be effectively used to capture the overall charging kinetics. However, the PNP/Stern model can only give a qualitative description of the fine features of the EDL.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)703-708
Number of pages6
JournalMicrofluidics and Nanofluidics
Volume8
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2010

Funding

Acknowledgments R.Q. thanks Professor Bazant at MIT for helpful discussions. The authors thank the Clemson-CCIT office for providing computer time. The Clemson authors acknowledge support from NSF under grant No. CBET-0756496. R.Q. was partly supported by an appointment to the HERE program for faculty at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) administered by ORISE. The authors at ORNL gratefully acknowledge the support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of ORNL and from U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DEAC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC at ORNL.

FundersFunder number
HERE
National Science Foundation
U.S. Department of Energy
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Laboratory Directed Research and Development

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