A theoretical investigation on photocatalytic oxidation on the TiO{sub 2} surface
- Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656 (Japan)
- Advanced Science Institute, RIKEN, Wako, Saitama 351-0198 (Japan)
The TiO{sub 2} photocatalytic oxidation mechanism was theoretically investigated by using long-range corrected time-dependent density functional theory (LC-TDDFT) with a cluster model of the anatase TiO{sub 2}(001) surface. We found that LC-TDDFT with the cluster model quantitatively reproduces the photoexcitations of the TiO{sub 2} surface by calculating the electronic spectra of a clean TiO{sub 2} surface and one with oxygen defects. We calculated the electronic spectra of a molecularly adsorbed TiO{sub 2} surface for the adsorptions of phenol, methanol, and methane molecules as typical organic molecules. We obtained the surprising result that the main peak of the phenol-adsorbed TiO{sub 2} surface, which overlaps with the main peak of the clean TiO{sub 2} surface, corresponds to charge transfers from the phenol molecule to the TiO{sub 2} surface. This indicates that the TiO{sub 2} photocatalytic oxidation proceeds through direct charge transfer excitation from the substrate molecules to the TiO{sub 2} surface. In contrast, we found slight and no charge transfer for methanol and methane adsorption, respectively, in agreement with the experimental findings for their reactivities. In light of these results, we propose a new mechanism for heterogeneous TiO{sub 2} photocatalytic oxidations.
- OSTI ID:
- 22047156
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 136, Issue 2; Other Information: (c) 2012 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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