Water Interaction with Iron Oxides

We present a mechanistic study on the interaction of water with a well-defined model Fe₃O₄(111) surface that was investigated by a combination of direct calorimetric measurements of adsorption energies, infrared vibrational spectroscopy, and calculations bases on density functional theory (DFT). We show that the adsorption energy of water (101 kJ mol⁻¹) is considerably higher than all previously reported values obtained by indirect desorption-based methods. By employing ¹⁸O-labeled water molecules and an Fe₃O₄ substrate, we proved that the generally accepted simple model of water dissociation to form two individual OH groups per water molecule is not correct. DFT calculations suggest formation of a dimer, which consists of one water molecule dissociated into two OH groups and another non-dissociated water molecule creating a thermodynamically very stable dimer-like complex