Rapid oxygen exchange between hematite and water vapor

Probing Water Dissociation and Oxygen Replacement on Partially Oxygen-Covered Cu(111) by Reflection Absorption Infrared Spectroscopy

The presence of chemisorbed oxygen on the Cu(111) surface is known to strongly reduce the activation barrier for water dissociation as compared to bare Cu(111). Here, we present direct experimental evidence for the hydrogen abstraction mechanism responsible for the facile H2O dissociation on an O/Cu(111) surface using reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) in combination with isotopically labeled reactants. We also observe that chemisorbed hydroxyl species produced by water dissociation on the O/Cu(111) surface undergo an efficient hydrogen atom transfer from trapped water molecules, leading to the rapid replacement of the initial oxygen isotope coverage and the detection of only a single hydroxyl isotopologue on the surface, in apparent contradiction with the hydrogen abstraction mechanism. In the presence of Cu2O oxide islands on the O/Cu(111) surface, water dissociation occurs selectively at the edges of those islands, leading to the self-assembly of isotopically ordered structures.

Facet effect of hematite on the hydrolysis of phthalate esters under ambient humidity conditions

Phthalate esters (PAEs) have been extensively used as additives in plastics and wallcovering, causing severe environmental contamination and increasing public health concerns. Here, we find that hematite nanoparticles with specific facet-control can efficiently catalyze PAEs hydrolysis under ambient humidity conditions, with the hydrolysis rates 2 orders of magnitude higher than that in water saturated condition. The catalytic performance of hematite shows a significant facet-dependence with the reactivity in the order {012} > {104} ≫ {001}, related to the atomic array of surface undercoordinated Fe. The {012} and {104} facets with the proper neighboring Fe-Fe distance of 0.34-0.39 nm can bidentately coordinate with PAEs, and thus induce much stronger Lewis-acid catalysis. Our study may inspire the development of nanomaterials with appropriate surface atomic arrays, improves our understanding for the natural transformation of PAEs under low humidity environment, and provides a promising approach to remediate/purify the ambient air contaminated by PAEs.

Surface-Based Post-synthesis Manipulation of Point Defects in Metal Oxides Using Liquid Water

Initial synthesis of semiconducting oxides leaves behind poorly controlled concentrations of unwanted atomic-scale defects that influence numerous electrical, optical, and reactivity properties. We have discovered through self-diffusion measurements and first-principles computations that poison-free oxide surfaces inject interstitial oxygen atoms into the crystalline solid when simply contacted with liquid water near room temperature. These interstitials diffuse quickly to depths of 20 nm-2 μm and are likely to eliminate prominent classes of unwanted defects or neutralize their action. The mild conditions of operation access a regime for oxide fabrication that relaxes important thermodynamic constraints that hamper defect regulation by conventional methods at higher temperatures. The surface-based approach appears well-suited for use with nanoparticles, porous oxides, and thin films for applications in advanced electronics, renewable energy storage, photocatalysis, and photoelectrochemistry.

Nanosecond solvation dynamics of the hematite/liquid water interface at hybrid DFT accuracy using committee neural network potentials

Metal oxide/water interfaces play an important role in biology, catalysis, energy storage and photocatalytic water splitting. The atomistic structure at these interfaces is often difficult to characterize by experimental techniques, whilst results from ab initio molecular dynamics simulations tend to be uncertain due to the limited length and time scales accessible. In this work, we train a committee neural network potential to simulate the hematite/water interface at the hybrid DFT level of theory to reach the nanosecond timescale and systems containing more than 3000 atoms. The NNP enables us to converge dynamical properties, not possible with brute-force ab initio molecular dynamics. Our simulations uncover a rich solvation dynamics at the hematite/water interface spanning three different time scales: picosecond H-bond dynamics between surface hydroxyls and the first water layer, in-plane/out-of-plane tilt motion of surface hydroxyls on the 10 ps time scale, and diffusion of water molecules from the oxide surface characterized by a mean residence lifetime of about 60 ps. Calculation of vibrational spectra confirm that H-bonds between surface hydroxyls and first layer water molecules are stronger than H-bonds in bulk water. Our study showcases how state of the art machine learning approaches can routinely be utilized to explore the structural dynamics at transition metal oxide interfaces with complex electronic structure. It foreshadows that c-NNPs are a promising tool to tackle the sampling problem in ab initio electrochemistry with explicit solvent molecules.

In Situ Monitoring of H2-Induced Nonstoichiometry in Cu2O

Using ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Auger electron spectroscopy to monitor the reduction of Cu₂O in H₂, we identify the formation of an intermediate, oxygen-deficient Cu₂O phase and its progressive inward growth into the deeper region of the oxide. Complemented by atomistic modeling, we show that the oxygen-deficient Cu₂O formation occurs via molecular H₂ adsorption at the Cu₂O surface, which results in the loss of lattice oxygen from the formation of H₂O molecules that desorb spontaneously from the oxide surface. The resulting oxygen-deficient Cu₂O is a stable intermediate that persists before the Cu₂O is fully reduced to metallic Cu. The oxygen vacancy-induced charge of the coordinating Cu atoms results in a satellite feature in Cu LMM, which can be used as a fingerprint to identify nonstoichiometry in oxides and local charge transfer induced by the nonstoichiometry.