DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Implications of the fractional charge of hydroxide at the electrochemical interface

Journal Article · · Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. PCCP
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c9cp05952k · OSTI ID:1616750

Rational design of materials that efficiently convert electrical energy into chemical bonds will ultimately depend on a thorough understanding of the electrochemical interface at the atomic level. Towards this goal, the use of density functional theory (DFT) at the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) level has been applied widely in the past 15 years. In the calculation of electrochemical reaction energetics using GGA-DFT, it is frequently implicitly assumed that ions in the Helmholtz plane have unit charge. However, the ion charge is observed to be fractional near the interface through both a capacitor model and through Bader charge partitioning. In this work, we show that this spurious charge transfer can be effectively mitigated by continuum charging of the electrolyte. Finally, we show that, similar to hydronium, the observed fractional charge of hydroxide is not due to a GGA level self-interaction error, as the partial charge is observed even when using hybrid level exchange–correlation functionals.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; VILLUM FONDEN
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC02-76SF00515; SC0004993
OSTI ID:
1616750
Journal Information:
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. PCCP, Journal Name: Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. PCCP Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 22; ISSN 1463-9076; ISSN PPCPFQ
Publisher:
Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (45)

Practical Considerations for Continuum Models Applied to Surface Electrochemistry journal May 2019
Improved grid-based algorithm for Bader charge allocation journal January 2007
Density functional theory and the band gap problem journal March 1985
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set journal July 1996
A fast and robust algorithm for Bader decomposition of charge density journal June 2006
Avoiding pitfalls in the modeling of electrochemical interfaces journal January 2013
Greening Ammonia toward the Solar Ammonia Refinery journal June 2018
Hartree–Fock many-body perturbation theory for nuclear ground-states journal May 2016
Progress and Perspectives of Electrochemical CO 2 Reduction on Copper in Aqueous Electrolyte journal April 2019
General Techno-Economic Analysis of CO 2 Electrolysis Systems journal February 2018
Unified Approach to Implicit and Explicit Solvent Simulations of Electrochemical Reaction Energetics journal October 2019
Electrochemical Barriers Made Simple journal June 2015
Potential Dependence of Electrochemical Barriers from ab Initio Calculations journal April 2016
Challenges in Modeling Electrochemical Reaction Energetics with Polarizable Continuum Models journal November 2018
A Challenge to the G ∼ 0 Interpretation of Hydrogen Evolution journal November 2019
Challenges for Density Functional Theory journal December 2011
Origin of the Overpotential for Oxygen Reduction at a Fuel-Cell Cathode journal November 2004
Understanding trends in electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction rates journal May 2017
A molecular perspective of water at metal interfaces journal July 2012
Understanding the apparent fractional charge of protons in the aqueous electrochemical double layer journal August 2018
Catalysis-Hub.org, an open electronic structure database for surface reactions journal May 2019
Ammonia synthesis from N 2 and H 2 O using a lithium cycling electrification strategy at atmospheric pressure journal January 2017
Jacob’s ladder of density functional approximations for the exchange-correlation energy conference January 2001
Hybrid functionals based on a screened Coulomb potential journal May 2003
Quantifying the effects of the self-interaction error in DFT: When do the delocalized states appear? journal June 2005
Influence of the exchange screening parameter on the performance of screened hybrid functionals journal December 2006
Implicit solvation model for density-functional study of nanocrystal surfaces and reaction pathways journal February 2014
Rungs 1 to 4 of DFT Jacob’s ladder: Extensive test on the lattice constant, bulk modulus, and cohesive energy of solids journal May 2016
The electric double layer at metal-water interfaces revisited based on a charge polarization scheme journal August 2018
DFT-MD of the (110)-Co 3 O 4 cobalt oxide semiconductor in contact with liquid water, preliminary chemical and physical insights into the electrochemical environment journal January 2019
Quantifying solvation energies at solid/liquid interfaces using continuum solvation methods journal January 2017
Precision Measurements of the Lattice Constants of Twelve Common Metals journal June 1925
Special points for Brillouin-zone integrations journal June 1976
Ab initiomolecular dynamics for liquid metals journal January 1993
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set journal October 1996
From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method journal January 1999
Density functionals for surface science: Exchange-correlation model development with Bayesian error estimation journal June 2012
Localization and Delocalization Errors in Density Functional Theory and Implications for Band-Gap Prediction journal April 2008
Metadynamics Simulations of the High-Pressure Phases of Silicon Employing a High-Dimensional Neural Network Potential journal May 2008
Local Scaling Correction for Reducing Delocalization Error in Density Functional Approximations journal February 2015
Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple journal October 1996
Insights into Current Limitations of Density Functional Theory journal August 2008
Combining theory and experiment in electrocatalysis: Insights into materials design journal January 2017
What would it take for renewably powered electrosynthesis to displace petrochemical processes? journal April 2019
Many-Body Perturbation Theory and Coupled Cluster Theory for Electron Correlation in Molecules journal October 1981