{"id":25,"date":"2019-07-23T17:51:51","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T17:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/?page_id=25"},"modified":"2020-01-10T18:32:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T18:32:06","slug":"research-interests","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/research-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Interests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8 size-medium alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/files\/2019\/07\/Screen-Shot-2019-07-16-at-1.33.17-PM-e1563982889845-300x200.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/files\/2019\/07\/Screen-Shot-2019-07-16-at-1.33.17-PM-e1563982889845-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/files\/2019\/07\/Screen-Shot-2019-07-16-at-1.33.17-PM-e1563982889845-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/files\/2019\/07\/Screen-Shot-2019-07-16-at-1.33.17-PM-e1563982889845-1024x682.png 1024w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/files\/2019\/07\/Screen-Shot-2019-07-16-at-1.33.17-PM-e1563982889845.png 1256w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Clathrate hydrates<\/strong> are semi-stable crystalline phases of water found deep in the Earth\u2019s oceans and in the permafrost in polar regions of our planet.<\/span><span class=\"s1\"><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp; <\/span>This crystalline structure of the ice forms cages, channels, and pores that entrap small, non-polar molecules such as carbon dioxide and methane.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Hydrates are an unusual material because they are an example of a phase of water stabilized by the presence of the hydrophobic guest molecules.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp; <\/span>Furthermore, clathrate hydrates naturally contain greenhouse gases.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp; <\/span>As clathrate hydrates melt due to global warming, more greenhouse gas molecules will be released into the atmosphere or dissolved into the ocean.&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">We are interested in understanding the interactions between the water cage and the entrapped molecules on the molecular length scale.&nbsp; Our research focuses on fundamental science questions about the energetics of these systems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Central Research Questions:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is the extent to which clathrate hydrates behave like a host-guest systems?<\/li>\n<li>Quantitatively describe how the host (water) and the guest (greenhouse gases) interact with each other. Why does the rule of like-dissolves-like seem to not apply?<\/li>\n<li>How do the wave and particle natures of the guest molecule affect the properties of clathrate hydrates?<\/li>\n<li>How do the inter- and intramolecular motions appear in vibrational spectroscopy?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Research Approaches<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">These research questions can be addressed&nbsp; by building mathematical models (theoretical chemistry) and simulating molecular motions (computational chemistry).&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"s1\">Electronic structure software such as Gaussian is used to calculate the inter- and intra-molecular interactions and ultimately to build a potential energy surface.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"s1\">A computer algorithm called Diffusion Monte Carlo is used to explore the potential energy surface and determine the nuclear wavefunction.&nbsp; Molecular dynamics calculations are used to understand the classical dynamics of large crystal structures of the clathrate hydrates.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Jordyn has included a short video of the diffusion Monte Carlo algorithm on her&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/jordyn-kim\/\">webpage.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clathrate hydrates are semi-stable crystalline phases of water found deep in the Earth\u2019s oceans and in the permafrost in polar regions of our planet.&nbsp; This crystalline structure of the ice forms cages, channels, and pores that entrap small, non-polar molecules such as carbon dioxide and methane. Hydrates are an unusual material because they are an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9798,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9798"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/lmadison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}