Anomalous surface diffusion of water compared to aprotic liquids in nanopores

H-1 nuclear magnetic relaxation dispersion experiments show remarkable differences between water and acetone in contact with microporous glass surfaces containing trace paramagnetic impurities. Analyzed with surface relaxation theory on a model porous system, the data obtained for water show that proton surface diffusion limited by chemical exchange with the bulk phase permits long-range effectively one-dimensional exploration along the pores. This magnetic-field dependence coupled with the anomalous temperature dependence of the relaxation rates permits a direct interpretation in terms of the proton translational diffusion coefficient at the surface of the pores. A universal rescaling applied to these data collected for different pore sizes and on a large variety of frequencies and temperatures. supports this interpretation. The analysis demonstrates that acetone diffuses more slowly, which increases the apparent confinement and results in a two-dimensional model for the molecular dynamics close to surface relaxation sinks. Surface-enhanced water proton diffusion, however, permits the proton to explore a greater spatial extent of the pore, which results in an apparent one-dimensional model for the diffusive:motions of the water that dominate nuclear spin relaxation. [S1063-651X(99)04209-9].