Intermolecular interactions between β-cyclodextrin and water

Tianxiang Guo; Lingfeng Kong; Junpeng Xu; Yuhan Geng; Runan Zhang; Yuanfeng Pan; Huining Xiao

doi:10.1039/d1ra03960a

Intermolecular interactions between β-cyclodextrin and water

RSC Adv. 2021 Jul 16;11(40):24807-24815. doi: 10.1039/d1ra03960a. eCollection 2021 Jul 13.

Authors

Tianxiang Guo^{1

2}, Lingfeng Kong^{1

2}, Junpeng Xu^{1

2}, Yuhan Geng^{1

2}, Runan Zhang^{1

2}, Yuanfeng Pan³, Huining Xiao⁴

Affiliations

¹ Hebei Key Lab of Power Plant Flue Gas Multi-Pollutants Control, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, North China Power University Baoding 071003 PR China.
² MOE Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Systems Optimization, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University Beijing 102206 PR China.
³ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangxi University Nanning 530004 PR China.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New Brunswick Fredericton E3B 5A3 Canada hxiao@unb.ca.

Abstract

This study focused on demonstrating the intermolecular interactions between β-cyclodextrin and water, with the aim to better understand the transfer of small molecules to β-cyclodextrin. The intermolecular interaction strength between β-cyclodextrin and water was analyzed using different methods such as the dynamic adsorption of water, the TG-DSC of β-cyclodextrin and molecular modeling employing MM2 force field calculations. The experiments for the adsorption of water on β-cyclodextrin was aimed to systematically investigate the adsorption characteristics, such as adsorption capacity, adsorption rate, adsorption heat and activation energy, influenced by the adsorption temperature and vapor pressure of water. The results indicated that the water adsorption on β-cyclodextrin is an exothermic process. The hysteresis loop type in the adsorption isotherms at multiple temperatures indicated that water adsorption is not purely a traditional physical adsorption due to the existence of structure effects such as the cavity effect and hydrogen bonding. The activation energy during water adsorption was 7.4 kJ mol^-1. However, the activation energy during water desorption was in the range of 35-45 kJ mol^-1, which decreased with an increase in the amount of water adsorbed. This indicated that water adsorption is much easier than water desorption from β-cyclodextrin and that water desorption is more difficult with a small amount of adsorbed water compared with a large amount of adsorbed water. Subsequently, the obtained average intermolecular interaction strength between β-cyclodextrin and water under the experimental conditions was 67.5 kJ mol^-1 (water), which was verified by DSC.