Rate-limiting step of proton transport in liquid water · revision history
Revision 2
Accepted · core change · record
Changes against revision 1:
- Title
- Rate-limiting step of proton transport in liquid water
- Plain
- Extra hydrogen ions move through water several times faster than other ions by hopping between water molecules. Which molecular step sets the speed of this hopping is not agreed.
- Precise · changed · core
- Revision 1: For an excess proton in liquid water at $300\,\mathrm{K}$, identify the rate-limiting step of structural (Grotthuss) diffusion, the relay of the proton from molecule to molecule: hydrogen-bond breaking or forming in the second solvation shell, or motion along the proton-transfer coordinate. An answer is a simulation with path-integral nuclei on a near-quantum-chemical potential that reproduces the measured proton diffusion coefficient (about $9.3e-5\,\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{s}$) and its H/D isotope effect and identifies the step from the trajectories.
- Revision 2: For an excess proton in liquid water at $300\,\mathrm{K}$, identify the rate-limiting step of structural (Grotthuss) diffusion, the relay of the proton from molecule to molecule: hydrogen-bond breaking or forming in the second solvation shell, or motion along the proton-transfer coordinate. An answer is a simulation with path-integral nuclei on a near-quantum-chemical potential that reproduces the measured proton diffusion coefficient (about $9.3 \times 10^{-5}\,\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{s}$) and its H/D isotope effect and identifies the step from the trajectories.
- Settled by
- Path-integral molecular dynamics on a coupled-cluster-quality potential reproducing diffusion and isotope effect, with a committor or rate analysis of the transfer events.
- Kind
- well-posed
- Answer type
- mechanism
- References
- (empty)
- Literature status
- contested
- Status note
- (empty)
- Posed since
- (empty)
Decisions
- Accept · 2026-10-15 · record