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Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is one of the environmentally benign solvent options for green chemistry. It readily absorbs water when exposed to the atmosphere. The Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of PEG200, a commercial mixture of low molecular weight polyethyelene glycol oligomers, as well as di-, tetra-, and hexaethylene glycol are presented to study the effect of added water impurities up to a weight fraction of 0.020, which covers the typical range of water impurities due to water absorption from the atmosphere. Each system was simulated a total of four times using different combinations of two force fields for the water (SPC/E and TIP4P/2005) and two force fields for the PEG and oligomer (OPLS-AA and modified OPLS-AA). The observed trends in the effects of water addition were qualitatively quite robust with respect to these force field combinations and showed that the water does not aggregate but forms hydrogen bonds at most between two water molecules. In general, the added water causes overall either no or very small and nuanced effects in the simulation results. Specifically, the obtained water RDFs are mostly identical regardless of the water content. The added water reduces oligomer hydrogen bonding interactions overall as it competes and forms hydrogen bonds with the oligomers. The loss of intramolecular oligomer hydrogen bonding is in part compensated by oligomers switching from inter- to intramolecular hydrogen bonding. The interplay of the competing hydrogen bonding interactions leads to the presence of shallow extrema with respect to the water weight fraction dependencies for densities, viscosities, and self-diffusion coefficients, in contrast to experimental measurements, which show monotonous dependencies. However, these trends are very small in magnitude and thus confirm the experimentally observed insensitivity of these physical properties to the presence of water impurities. 

This review gives an overview of current trends in the investigation of confined molecules such as water, small and higher alcohols, carbonic acids, ethylene glycol, and non-ionic surfactants, such as polyethylene glycol or Triton-X, as guest molecules in neat and functionalized mesoporous silica materials employing solid-state NMR spectroscopy, supported by calorimetry and molecular dynamics simulations. The combination of steric interactions, hydrogen bonds, and hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions results in a fascinating phase behavior in the confinement. Combining solid-state NMR and relaxometry, DNP hyperpolarization, molecular dynamics simulations, and general physicochemical techniques, it is possible to monitor these confined molecules and gain deep insights into this phase behavior and the underlying molecular arrangements. In many cases, the competition between hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions between polar and non-polar moieties of the guests and the host leads to the formation of ordered structures, despite the cramped surroundings inside the pores. 

Xanthan gum (XG) is a carbohydrate polymer with anionic properties that is widely used as a rheology modifier in various applications, including foods and petroleum extraction. The aim was to investigate the effect of Na+, K+, and Ca2+ on the physicochemical properties of XG in an aqueous solution as a function of temperature. Huggins, Kraemer, and Rao models were applied to determine intrinsic viscosity, [η], by fitting the relative viscosity (ηrel) or specific viscosity (ηsp) of XG/water and XG/salt/water solutions. With increasing temperature in water, Rao 1 gave [η] the closest to the Huggins and Kraemer values. In water, [η] was more sensitive to temperature increase (~30% increase in [η], 20–50 °C) compared to salt solutions (~15–25% increase). At a constant temperature, salt counterions screened the XG side-chain-charged groups and decreased [η] by up to 60% over 0.05–100 mM salt. Overall, Ca2+ was much more effective than the monovalent cations in screening charge. As the salt valency and concentration increased, the XG coil radius decreased, making evident the effect of shielding the intramolecular and intermolecular XG anionic charge. The reduction in repulsive forces caused XG structural contraction. Further, higher temperatures led to chain expansion that facilitated increased intermolecular interactions, which worked against the salt effect. 

The anionic hydrocolloid polysaccharide xanthan gum is widely used in the food and petroleum industries (among others) as a viscosity enhancement polymer due to its high viscosity at low concentrations and moderate temperatures. The physical properties of microbial polysaccharide xanthan gum aqueous solutions were investigated using temperature dependent viscosity measurements. Specifically, the effect of thermal history on the solution viscosity was investigated. Heating and cooling cycles were assessed in two ways, by using a “sawtooth” and “triangle” pattern, which essentially differed in the rates of cooling. The sawtooth method used a cooling rate of 2.0 ◦C min􀀀 1 whereas the triangle pattern had a cooling rate of 0.20 ◦C min􀀀 1. The sawtooth cooling rate was controlled by the speed at which the Peltier device could cool the sample, and the triangle rate was governed by the time required to measure the viscosity at each temperature on return to the initial value. Cycles measured using the sawtooth pattern for 16 mg/kg xanthan gum in water showed an 8–10% overall decrease in the viscosity over four complete cycles. Comparatively, at 320 mg/kg the xanthan gum solution showed a 25% decrease in viscosity over four cycles. The observed temperature dependent viscosity variation suggested minor modifications in the physical network structure of xanthan gum. When using a triangle heating/cooling pattern, the overall decrease in the xanthan gum solution viscosity was 5–7% for 16 mg/kg and only 10% change for 320 mg/ kg solutions. The activation energy of viscous flow for the aqueous xanthan gum solutions by either method was ~15.0 kJ/mol under all conditions. The data showed that temperature and heating cycles influence xanthan gum viscosity and thermal history, which depends more strongly on xanthan gum concentration than solution temperature. 

The physicochemical effects of decorating pore walls of high surface area materials with functional groups are not sufficiently understood, despite the use of these materials in a multitude of applications such as catalysis, separations, or drug delivery. In this study, the influence of 3- amino-propyl triethoxysilane (APTES)-modified SBA-15 on the dynamics of deuterated ethylene glycol (EG-d4) is inspected by comparing three systems: EG-d4 in the bulk phase (sample 1), EG-d4 confined in SBA-15 (sample 2), and EG-d4 confined in SBA-15 modified with APTES (sample 3). The phase behavior (i.e., melting, crystallization, glass formation, etc.) of EG-d4 in these three systems is studied by differential scanning calorimetry. Through line shape analysis of the 2H solid-state NMR (2H ssNMR) spectra of the three systems recorded at different temperatures, two signal patterns, (i) a Lorentzian (liquid-like) and (ii) a Pake pattern (solid-like), are identified from which the distribution of activation energies for the dynamic processes is calculated employing a two-phase model. 

Two different mesoporous silica materials (SBA-15 and MCM 41) were impregnated with four different, commercially available surfactants, namely, E5, PEG 200, C10E6, and Triton X-100. Differential scanning calorimetry was employed to confirm the confinement of the surfactants in the pores of their host materials. Dynamic nuclear polarization enhanced solid state 13C magic angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra were recorded for these materials, showing that both the direct as well as the indirect polarization transfer pathways are active for the carbons of the polyethylene glycol moieties of the surfactants. The presence of the indirect polarization pathway implies the presence of molecular motion with correlation times faster than the inverse Larmor frequency of the observed signals. The intensities of the signals were determined, and an approach based on relative intensities was employed to ensure comparability throughout the samples. From these data, the interactions of the surfactants with the pore walls could be determined. Additionally, a model describing the surfactants’ arrangement in the pores was developed. It was concluded that all carbons of the hydrophilic surfactants, E5 and PEG 200, interact with the silica walls in a similar fashion, leading to similar polarization transfer pathway patterns for all observed signals. For the amphiphilic surfactants C10E6 and Triton X-100, the terminal hydroxyl group mediates the majority of the interactions with the pore walls and the polarizing agent. 

This study is seeking a better understanding of polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a solvent to promote its use in chemical synthesis. The effect of adding two solutes of interest, 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyloxyl (TEMPO) and 5-tert-butylisophthalic acid (5-TBIPA) to PEG200 (average molar weight of 200 g·mol−1) on the solution density, viscosity, and selfdiffusion coefficients is monitored in a temperature range of 298.15–358.15 K to deduce how these solutes interact with the PEG200 solvent. The effect of water, the most common impurity in PEGs, is also monitored and found to be nearly negligibly small. Addition of (5-TBIPA) increases solution density and viscosity. Combined with the observation that 5-TBIPA consistently self-diffuses at about half the rate as PEG200 at all investigated experimental conditions, this suggests strong attractive solute–solvent interactions likely through hydrogen bonding interactions. In contrast, addition of TEMPO causes lower solution densities and viscosities suggesting that the solute–solvent interactions of TEMPO lead to an overall weakening of the intermolecular interactions present compared to neat PEG200. Inspection of the viscosity and self-diffusion temperature dependence reveals slight deviations from the Arrhenius equation. Interestingly, the activation energies obtained from the viscosity and the self-diffusion data are essentially identical in values suggesting that the same dynamic processes and thus the same activation barriers govern translational motion and momentum transfer in these PEG200 solutions.