Prediction of Osmotic Pressure of Ionic Liquids Inside a Nanoslit by MD Simulation and Continuum Approach*

Osmotic pressure plays an important role in the processes of charging and discharging of lithium batteries. In this work, osmotic pressure of the ionic liquids confined inside a nanoslit is calculated by using both MD simulation and continuum approach. In the case of MD simulation, an ionic liquid is modeled as singly charged spheres with a short-ranged repulsive Lennard-Jones potential. The radii of the spheres are 0.5nm, reflecting the symmetry of ion sizes for simplicity. The simulation box size is 11nm×11nm×7.5nm with 1050 ion pairs. The concentration of ionic liquid is about 1.922mol/L, and the total charge on an individual wall varies from ±60e(7.944$\mu $m/cm$^{\mathrm{2}})$ to \textpm 600e(79.44$\mu $m/cm$^{\mathrm{2}})$. In the case of continuum approach, we classify the problems according to the correlation length and steric factor, and considered the four separate cases: 1) zero correlation length and zero steric factor, 2) zero correlation length and non-zero steric factor, 3) non-zero correlation length and zero steric factor, and 4) non-zero correlation and non-zero steric factor. Better understanding of the osmotic pressure of ionic liquids confined inside a nanoslit can be achieved by comparing the results of MD simulation and continuum approach.