Hydrophobic interactions are involved in and believed to be the fundamental driving force of many chemical and biological phenomena in aqueous environments. This review focuses on our current understanding on hydrophobic effects. As a solute is embedded into water, the interface appears between solute and water, which mainly affects the structure of interfacial water (the topmost water layer at the solute/water interface). From our recent structural studies on water and air-water interface, hydration free energy is derived and utilized to investigate the origin of hydrophobic interactions. It is found that hydration free energy depends on the size of solute. With increasing the solute size, it is reasonably divided into initial and hydrophobic solvation processes, and various dissolved behaviors of the solutes are expected in different solvation processes, such as dispersed and accumulated distributions in solutions. Regarding the origin of hydrophobic effects, it is ascribed to the structural competition between the hydrogen bondings of interfacial and bulk water. This can be applied to understand the characteristics of hydrophobic interactions, such as the dependence of hydrophobic interactions on solute size (or concentrations), the directional natures of hydrophobic interactions, and temperature effects on hydrophobic interactions.

In this work, the Raman spectra of aqueous C12E5 solutions are recorded and utilized to demonstrate the existence of single donator-single acceptor (DA) hydrogen bonding in water. From Raman OH stretching bands of aqueous C12E5 solutions, the relative intensity of 3430 cm−1 subband increases with C12E5 concentrations. For confined water, the DA hydrogen bonding can be expected to be the important hydrogen bonding species. Therefore, the 3430 cm−1 component can be ascribed to OH vibration engaged in DA hydrogen bonding. This is in agreement with our recent explanation on Raman OH stretching band of water. For water at ambient conditions, the double donor-double acceptor (DDAA) and DA should be the dominant hydrogen bonding species, the ratio of DDAA to DA can be approximately to be 0.75:1, and the mean hydrogen bonding can be determined to be 2.75.

Superhydrophobicity is closely linked to the chemical composition and geometric characteristics of surface roughness. Building on our structural studies on water and air–water interfaces, this work aims to elucidate the mechanism underlying the wetting transition from the Wenzel to the Cassie state on a hydrophobic surface. In the Wenzel state, the grooves are filled with water, meaning that the surface roughness becomes embedded in the liquid. To evaluate the effects of surface roughness on water structure, a wetting parameter (W_Roughness) is proposed, which is closely related to the geometric characteristics of roughness, such as pillar size, width, and height. During the wetting transition from Wenzel to Cassie states, the critical wetting parameter (W_Roughness,c) may be expected, which corresponds to the critical pillar size (a_c), width (w_c), and height (h_c). The Cassie state is expected when the W_Roughness is less than W_Roughness,c (<W_Roughness,c), which can be achieved by altering the geometric characteristics of the roughness, such as increasing pillar size (>a_c), decreasing width (<w_c), or increasing height (>h_c). Additionally, molecular dynamic (MD) simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effects of surface roughness on superhydrophobicity.

According to our recent studies on hydrophobicity, this work is aimed at understanding the dependence of hydrophobic interactions on the shape of a solute’s surface. It has been observed that dissolved solutes primarily affect the structure of interfacial water, which refers to the top layer of water at the interface between the solute and water. As solutes aggregate in a solution, hydrophobic interactions become closely related to the transition of water molecules from the interfacial region to the bulk water. It is inferred that hydrophobic interactions may depend on the shape of the solute surface. To enhance the strength of hydrophobic interactions, the solutes tend to aggregate, thereby minimizing their surface area-to-volume ratio. This also suggests that hydrophobic interactions may exhibit directional characteristics. Moreover, this phenomenon can be supported by calculated potential mean forces (PMFs) using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, where different surfaces, such as convex, flat, or concave, are associated with a sphere. Furthermore, this concept can be extended to comprehend the molecular packing parameter, commonly utilized in studying the self-assembly behavior of amphiphilic molecules in aqueous solutions.

In this study, molecular dynamic simulations are employed to investigate the homogeneous nucleation mechanism of NaCl crystal in solutions. According to the simulations, the dissolved behaviors of NaCl in water are dependent on ion concentrations. With increasing NaCl concentrations, the dissolved Na⁺ and Cl^- ions tend to be aggregated in solutions. In combination with our recent studies, the aggregate of dissolved solutes is mainly ascribed to the hydrophobic interactions. Different from the two-step mechanism, no barrier is needed to overcome the formation of the aggregate. In comparison with the classical nucleation theory (CNT), because of the formation of solute aggregate, this lowers the barrier height of nucleation and affects the nucleation mechanism of NaCl crystal in water.