Selective adsorption of ions in charged slit-systems

Abstract

We study the selective adsorption of various cations into a layered slit system using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations. The slit system is formed by a series of negatively charged membranes. The electrolyte contains two kinds of cations with different sizes and valences modelled by charged hard spheres immersed in a continuum dielectric solvent. We present the results for various cases depending on the combinations of the properties of the competing cations. We concentrate on the case when the divalent cations are larger than the monovalent cations. In this case, size and charge have counterbalancing effects, which results in interesting selectivity phenomena.