Publication: Dissolution of solid NaCl nano-particles embedded in supersaturated water vapor probed by molecular dynamic simulations

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Title	Dissolution of solid NaCl nano-particles embedded in supersaturated water vapor probed by molecular dynamic simulations
Authors/Editors*	Alexander Zasetsky, Igor Svishchev and James Sloan,
Where published*	Journal of Physical Chemistry A
How published*	Journal
Year*	2008
Volume	112
Number	14
Pages	3114-3118
Publisher	ACS
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Abstract	The dissolution process for small, on the order of 1000 atoms, crystalline NaCl particles with defects embedded in highly supersaturated water vapor was studied by the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation method. We found that a breakdown of the crystal lattice does not occur unless (1) the thickness of water layer covering the surface of salt particles exceeds several molecular layers and (2) there are a considerable number of defects in the crystal. The collapse of the crystal lattice starts when the amount of water taken up by a salt particle reaches about half (~50%) of the amount of salt in this particle. The number of defects required to initiate subsequent dissolution of the NaCl crystal on the time scale accessible by our simulations (~40 ns) is in the range of 10 to 12%. We also report the estimates for the time required to form supersaturated aqueous solutions of NaCl from originally crystalline particles as a function of the number of defects in the crystal.