Solvation of nitrogen compounds in Titan's seas, precipitates, and atmosphere

JM Stevenson and WA Fouad and D Shalloway and D Usher and J Lunine and WG Chapman and P Clancy, ICARUS, 256, 1-12 (2015).

DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2015.04.019

Saturn's moon Titan, dominated by its low, 90-95 K, surface temperature and methane seas, is shaped by physical and chemical processes unparalleled in any environment on Earth. Titan's upper atmosphere produces a rain of compounds such as acetonitrile, acrylonitrile, and acetylene, more familiar to chemical processing plants than to nature. The interaction of these compounds with Titan's seas is, to a large extent, unknown. As an important first step towards understanding these interactions, we investigate the solvation properties of many of these compounds in methane using multiple theoretical approaches, including cubic equations of state, Statistical Associating Fluid Theory, the Conductor like Screening Model for Real Solvents, and all-atom Molecular Dynamics. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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