Orientational ordering of water in extended hydration shells of cations is ion-specific and is correlated directly with viscosity and hydration free energy.

Specific ion effects in aqueous solutions are investigated at the molecular, nanoscopic and macroscopic levels. Femtosecond elastic second harmonic scattering (fs-ESHS) is used here to assess the chemical effects of ions on molecular and nanoscopic length scales of water, probing changes in the charge distribution around ions as well as structural orientational order of water molecules in extended hydration shells. We measured >0.05 M electrolyte solutions with a series of chloride salts (LiCl, NaCl, KCl, CsCl, RbCl, NH4Cl, MgCl2, CaCl2, and SrCl2). Ion specificity is observed in both the local electronic anisotropy and the nanoscopic orientational ordering of water. Both observables are influenced more by cations with larger valencies and smaller sizes and follow a direct Hofmeister trend. These ion-induced structural changes in the hydrogen-bond network of water are strongly correlated with the viscosity B-coefficient and the Gibbs free energy of hydration of ions. Such a connection between the nanoscopic and macroscopic changes provides a possibility to construct a molecular model for specific ion effects in aqueous solutions.