Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution from Water on a Mn(III-V) Dimer Model Catalyst - A DFT Perspective

A complete water oxidation and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) cycle is monitored by means of Density Functional Theory (DFT). A biomimetic model catalyst is employed, comprising a m-OH bridged Mn(III-V) dimer truncated by acetylacetonate ligand analogs and hydroxides. The reaction cycle is divided into four electrochemical hydrogen abstraction steps followed by a series of chemical steps. The former employ the Tyrosine/Tyrosyl radical acting as electron and proton sink thus determining the reference potential. Stripping hydrogen from water leads to the formation of two highly unstable Mn(V)=O/Mn(IV)-O\ub7 moieties, which subsequently combine to form a peroxy O-O bond. O2 evolution results from subsequent consecutive replacement of remaining Mn-O bonds by water. Conditions for the validities of GGA DFT and self-interaction error corrected hybrid DFT predictions despite the presence of a manifold of near-degenerate spin states, are discussed in some detail. The applicability of the former is extended to include the rate limiting steps in the OER