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Title: Influence of LaFeO3 Surface Termination on Water Reactivity

Journal Article · · Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [1]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate
  2. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate; Auburn Univ., AL (United States). Dept. of Physics
  3. Pohang Accelerator Lab. (PAL) (Korea, Republic of)
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Advanced Light Source

© 2017 American Chemical Society. The polarity of oxide surfaces can dramatically impact their surface reactivity, in particular, with polar molecules such as water. The surface species that result from this interaction change the oxide electronic structure and chemical reactivity in applications such as photoelectrochemistry but are challenging to probe experimentally. Here, we report a detailed study of the surface chemistry and electronic structure of the perovskite LaFeO 3 in humid conditions using ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Comparing the two possible terminations of the polar (001)-oriented surface, we find that the LaO-terminated surface is more reactive toward water, forming hydroxyl species and adsorbing molecular water at lower relative humidity than its FeO 2 -terminated counterpart. However, the FeO 2 -terminated surface forms more hydroxyl species during water adsorption at higher humidity, suggesting that adsorbate-adsorbate interactions may impact reactivity. Our results demonstrate how the termination of a complex oxide can dramatically impact its reactivity, providing insight that can aid in the design of catalyst materials.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC0576RL01830; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1343949
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1379758
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-123478
Journal Information:
Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 8, Issue 5; ISSN 1948-7185
Publisher:
American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 43 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Surface termination effects on the oxygen reduction reaction rate at fuel cell cathodes journal January 2018
Chemical and electronic structure analysis of a SrTiO3 (001)/p-Ge (001) hydrogen evolution photocathode journal March 2018
Impact of Sr-Incorporation on Cr Oxidation and Water Dissociation in La (1- x ) Sr x CrO 3 journal January 2018
Speciation and Electronic Structure of La1−xSrxCoO3−δ During Oxygen Electrolysis journal October 2018
Effect of Bi-doping on the electrocatalytic properties of LaFeO3 powders prepared by sol–gel method journal February 2019
The effects of the oxygen content on the photoelectrochemical properties of LaFeO3 perovskite thin films obtained by pulsed laser deposition journal November 2019
Surface phase diagrams of La-based perovskites towards the O-rich limit from first principles journal January 2019

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