Chlorine Adsorption on TiO<sub>2</sub>(110)/Water Interface: Nonadiabatic Molecular Dynamics Simulations for Photocatalytic Water Splitting

Chloride is one of the most abundant ions in sea water, which is more available than fresh water. Due to lack of H<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>2</mn...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yin-Pai Lin, Dmitry Bocharov, Inta Isakoviča, Vladimir Pankratov, Aleksandr A. Popov, Anatoli I. Popov, Sergei Piskunov
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-03-01
Series:Electronic Materials
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2673-3978/4/1/4
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Summary:Chloride is one of the most abundant ions in sea water, which is more available than fresh water. Due to lack of H<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>2</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>O adsorbate states near the valence band maximum (VBM) edge, the difficulty of water dissociation incidents has been reported on the rutile TiO<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>2</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula> surface as the excitation energy is around the band gap energy of TiO<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>2</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula>. It is interesting whether the extra chloride can be a benefit to the water dissociation or not. In this study, the models of chlorine adatoms placed on the rutile TiO<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>2</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula> (110)/water interface are constructed using ab initio methods. The time-dependent spatial charges, bond-lengths of water molecules, and Hirshfeld charges are calculated by real-time time-dependent density functional theory and the Ehrenfest dynamics theory for investigating the excited state nonadiabatic dynamics of water dissociation. This study presents two photoinduced water-splitting pathways related to chlorine and analyzes the photogenerated hole along the reactions. The first step of water dissociation relies on the localized competition of oxygen charges between the dissociated water and the bridge site of TiO<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msub><mrow></mrow><mn>2</mn></msub></semantics></math></inline-formula> for transforming the water into hydroxyl and hydrogen by photoinduced driving force.
ISSN:2673-3978