Water surrounded by hydrophobic interfaces affects a variety of chemical reactions and biological activities. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be used to investigate the behavior of water at hydrophobic interfaces. Here, we determined the fundamental unit of water by evaluating the ice-like cluster formation of water in the limited hydrophobic nanospaces of CNTs, using X-ray diffraction and molecular simulation analysis. The water in CNTs with a diameter of 1 nm had fewer hydrogen bonds than bulk water under ambient conditions. In CNTs with diameters of 2 and 3 nm, water formed nanoclusters even under ambient conditions, because of prolific hydrogen bonding; predominant ice-like cluster formation was induced in the 2-3 nm nanospaces. The results confirming the cluster formation in the CNTs also demonstrated that the critical cluster size was 0.8-3.4 nm. The fundamental cluster size was 0.8 nm; these results indicated that 0.8 nm clusters are the fundamental units of water assemblies.
Keywords: X-ray diffraction; hydrogen bonds; nanostructures; nanotubes; water chemistry.
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