Different temperature- and pressure-effects on the water-mediated interactions between hydrophobic, hydrophilic, and hydrophobic–hydrophilic nanoscale surfaces

Abstract

Water-mediated interactions (WMIs) are responsible for diverse processes in aqueous solutions, including protein folding and nanoparticle aggregation. WMI may be affected by changes in temperature and pressure, and hence, they can alter chemical/physical processes that occur in aqueous environments. Traditionally, attention has been focused on hydrophobic interactions while, in comparison, the role of hydrophilic and hybrid (hydrophobic–hydrophilic) interactions have been mostly overlooked. Here, we study the role of T and P on the WMI between nanoscale (i) hydrophobic–hydrophobic, (ii) hydrophilic–hydrophilic, and (iii) hydrophilic–hydrophobic pairs of (hydroxylated/non-hydroxylated) graphene-based surfaces. We find that hydrophobic, hydrophilic, and hybrid interactions are all sensitive to P. However, while hydrophobic interactions [case (i)] are considerably sensitive to T-variations, hydrophilic [case (ii)] and hybrid interactions [case (iii)] are practically T-independent. An analysis of the entropic and enthalpic contributions to the potential of mean force for cases (i)–(iii) is also presented. Our results are important in understanding T- and P-induced protein denaturation and the interactions of biomolecules in solution, including protein aggregation and phase separation processes. From the computational point of view, the results presented here are relevant in the design of implicit water models for the study of molecular and colloidal/nanoparticle systems at different thermodynamic conditions.