IR spectroscopy of aqueous alkali halide solutions: Pure salt-solvated water spectra and hydration numbers

Extrapolation techniques were used to obtain pure salt-solvated water spectra from the attenuated total reflection infrared spectra (ATR-IR) of aqueous solutions of the nine alkali halide salts LiCl, NaCl, KCl, CsCl, NaBr, KBr, NaI, KI, and CsI and the alkaline-earth chloride salt MgCl2. These salts ionize completely in water. The ions by themselves do not absorb in the IR, but their interactions with water can be observed and analyzed. A pure salt-solvated water spectrum is easier to analyze than that of a combined solution of pure water and salt-solvated water. Although the salt-solvated water spectra examined have distinctive signatures, they can be classified in three categories: those similar to NaCl; those not similar to NaCl; and MgCl2, in a class by itself. Each of the pure salt-solvated water spectra differs from that of liquid water, though the number of bands is the same. From the Gaussian band fitting, we found that the positions of the bands were fairly constant, whereas their intensities differed. The salt hydration numbers were determined: for NaCl, KCl, NaBr, KBr, and CsI solutions it is 5; for KI and MgCL2 it is 4; for NaI it is 3.5; for CsCl it is 3; and for LiCl it is 2. From these results we found that each pair of ions (monoatomic ions) of the ten salt solutions studied are close bound and form a complex in a cluster organization with a fixed number of water molecules. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.