Fortuitous Cancellation of Competing Effects in the Free Energy of Water Autoionization: Long-Range Electrostatics, System Size, and Nuclear Quantum Effects

Samuel Varner, Yinan Xu, Yezhi Jin +8

Few molecular processes are more fundamental to chemistry than the autoionization of water, whose equilibrium constant, $K_w\approx 10^{-14}$, underlies acid-base equilibria and t…