Picosecond self-diffusion in ethanol–water mixtures

Abstract

We report the self-diffusion in ethanol–water mixtures as a function of the water–ethanol ratio measured at different temperatures using quasi-elastic neutron spectroscopy (QENS). For our protiated samples, QENS is mainly sensitive to the dominant ensemble-averaged incoherent scattering from the hydrogen atoms of the liquid mixtures. The energy range and resolution render our experiment sensitive to the picosecond time scale and nanometer length scale. These observation scales complement different scales accessible by nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. Subsequent to testing different models, we find that a simple jump-diffusion model averaging over both types of molecules, water and ethanol, best fits our data.