Molecular Perspective on Solutions and Liquid Mixtures from Modelling and Experiment

Liquid solutions and mixtures are part of our everyday lives and also important for their chemical and industrial applications. While considered fairly unattractive substances when kept in bottles and containers, their behavior as molecules can be completely the opposite, continuously attracting scientists to explain it better. Very strong repulsive and attractive interactions between the molecules can create most intriguing local structures, aggregates and complexes, whose spatial organization is often difficult to rationalize. Also, the same mixture can behave completely differently depending on the composition ratio, affecting strongly its macroscopic properties. To gain insight into the complex world of binary liquid mixtures, deep eutectic solvents and ionic liquid systems, combined theoretical and experimental studies are necessary. In this chapter we introduce the methodology of computer simulations and illustrate with several examples of the often-unexpected behavior of many liquid mixtures.