Solubility of gases in water: Correlation between solubility and the number of water molecules in the first solvation shell

Abstract

Using a new version of a program called GEPOL, a consistent set of values for areas of three different kinds of surfaces for 53 gaseous solutes was computed by Silla et al. These surface areas, together with the volumes of space enclosed by the surfaces, are reported in the present paper. The three surfaces are the van der Waals Surface (WS), the Solvent Accessible Surface (SAS) and the Solvent-Excluding Surface (SES). Values for the number of water molecules (N) in the first solvation shell are estimated by a simple surface area approach from the SAS data. Values of N, as well as literature data on solubilities of gases in water, are used to study various semi-empirical correlations between thermodynamic changes on solution and the number of water molecules in the first solvation shell.