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Why Dissolving Salt in Water Decreases Its Dielectric Permittivity

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters

The dielectric permittivity of salt water decreases on dissolving more salt. For nearly a century, this phenomenon has been explained by invoking saturation in the dielectric response of the solvent water molecules. Herein, we employ an advanced deep neural network (DNN), built using data from density functional theory, to study the dielectric permittivity of sodium chloride solutions. Notably, the decrease in the dielectric permittivity as a function of concentration, computed using the DNN approach, agrees well with experiments. Detailed analysis of the computations reveals that the dominant effect, caused by the intrusion of ionic hydration shells into the solvent hydrogen-bond network, is the disruption of dipolar correlations among water molecules. Accordingly, the observed decrease in the dielectric permittivity is mostly due to increasing suppression of the collective response of solvent waters.

Research Organization:
Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States); UT-Battelle LLC/ORNL, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Army Research Office (ARO)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0019394; AC02-05CH11231; AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
2421254
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 2280404
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 131; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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