Understanding water structure and reactivity at aluminium oxide surfaces using nonlinear vibra-tional spectroscopy and theory (B01)

• Subject Area: Physical Chemistry of Molecules, Liquids and Interfaces, Biophysical Chemistry ; Theoretical Chemistry: Electronic Structure, Dynamics, Simulation
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 234149247

Corundum-type metal oxide surfaces are ubiquitous. Most of their properties, e.g., their reactivity, proton conductivity and charge, strongly depend on reaction with water. However, understanding how water and oxides interact is challenging: it requires the description of processes that occur over many orders of magnitude in time and space. Here we address this multi-scale challenge both experimentally, by time averaged and ultrafast time resolved surface-sensitive vibrational spectroscopy, and theoretically, by quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics, for two corundum-type oxides, α-Al2O3 and α-Fe2O3, that are isostructural but differ dramatically in bulk electronic structure.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1109: Understanding of Oxide/Water Systems at the Molecular Scale: Structural Evolution, Interfaces and Dissolution
• Applicant Institution: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Co-Applicant Institution: Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (FHI); Universität Potsdam
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Richard Kramer Campen, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Peter Saalfrank