Confinement of <i>tert</i>-Butanol Nanoclusters in Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Silica Nanopores

Abstract

From hydrogen bonds, tert -butanol molecules self-organize in micelle-like supermolecular clusters in the liquid state. While these nanoclusters have been largely investigated in the bulk phase, the confined situation remains seldom. However, from a relevant combination of neutron scattering and molecular simulation, it has been shown that these clusters persisted under hydrophilic cylindrical confinement [Ghoufi, A.; Hureau, I.; Lefort, R.; Morineau, D. J. Phys. Chem. C, 2011, 115, 17761]. In this work, we provide a structural, dynamic, and dielectric characterization of nanoconfined tert -butanol in both hydrophilic and hydrophobic silica nanopores. Differences between hydrophilic and hydrophobic pores with respect to the bulk phase are correlated to the modulation in the hydrogen-bonding network induced by the nanometric confinement and the chemical nature of the solid surface.