The Mechanism of Hydrophobic Solvation Depends on Solute Radius

We model the aqueous solvation of a nonpolar solute as a function of its radius. We use a simplified statistical mechanical model of water, the Mercedes Benz (MB) model, in NPT Monte Carlo simulations. This model has previously been shown to predict qualitatively the volume anomalies of pure water and the free energy, enthalpy, entropy, heat capacity, and volume change for inserting a nonpolar solute into water. We find a very different mechanism for the aqueous solvation of large nonpolar solutes (much larger than a water) than for smaller solutes. Small solute transfer involves a large hydrophobic heat capacity; its disaffinity for cold water (room temperature or below) is due to the ordering of the neighboring waters (entropic), while its disaffinity for hot water is due to the breaking of hydrogen bonds among the neighboring waters (enthalpic). In contrast, transferring large nonpolar solutes into water involves no such large changes in heat capacity or entropy. In this regard, large nonpolar solutes ...