Colossal Effect of Nanopore Surface Ionic Charge on the Dynamics of Confined Water

Interfacial interactions significantly alter the fundamental properties of water confined in mesoporous structures with crucial implications for geological, physicochemical, and biological processes. Herein, we focused on the effect of changing the surface ionic charge of nanopores with comparable pore sizes (3.5–3.8 nm) on the dynamics of confined liquid water. The control of the pore surface ionicity was achieved by using two periodic mesoporous organosilicas (PMOs) containing either neutral or charged forms of a chemically similar bridging unit. The effect on the dynamics of water at the nanoscale was investigated in the temperature range 245–300 K, encompassing the glass transition by incoherent quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS). For both types of PMOs, the water dynamics revealed two distinct types of molecular motions: rapid local movements and translational jump diffusion. While the neutral PMO induces a moderate confinement effect, we show that the charged PMO drastically slows down water dynamics, reducing translational diffusion by a factor of 4 and increasing the residence time by an order of magnitude. Notably, by changing the pore filling values, we demonstrate that for charged PMOs, this effect extends beyond the interfacial layer of surface-bound water molecules to encompass the entire pore volume. Thus, our observation indicates a dramatic change in the long-range character of the interaction of water confined in nanopores with surface ionic charge compared to a simple change in hydrophilicity. This is relevant for the understanding of a broad variety of applications in (nano)technological phenomena and processes such as nanofiltration and membrane design.