Adsorption of water monomer and clusters on platinum(111) terrace and related steps and kinks: I. Configurations, energies, and hydrogen bonding

Adsorption and rotation of water monomer, dimer, and trimer on the (111) terrace, (221) and (322) stepped, and (763) and (854) kinked surfaces of platinum were studied by density functional theory calculations using the PW91 approximation to the energy functional. On the (111) terrace, water monomer and the donor molecule of the dimer and trimer adsorb at atop sites. The per-molecule adsorption energies of the monomer, dimer, and trimer are 0.30, 0.45, and 0.48 eV, respectively. Rotation of monomers, dimers, and trimers on the terrace is facile with energy barriers of 0.02 eV or less. Adsorption on steps and kinks is stronger than on the terrace, as evidenced by monomer adsorption energies of 0.46 to 0.55 eV. On the (221) stepped surface the zigzag extended configuration is most stable with a per-molecule adsorption energy of 0.57 eV. On the (322) stepped surface the dimer, two configurations of the trimer, and the zigzag configuration have similar adsorption energies of 0.55 ± 0.02 eV. Hydrogen bonding is strongest in the dimer and trimer adsorbed on the terrace, with respective energies of 0.30 and 0.27 eV, and accounts for their increased adsorption energies relative to the monomer. Hydrogen bonding is weak to moderate for adsorption at steps, with energies of 0.04 to 0.15 eV, as the much stronger water–metal interactions inhibit adsorption geometries favorable to hydrogen bonding. Correlations of hydrogen bond angles and energies with hydrogen bond lengths are presented. On the basis of these DFT/PW91 results, a model for water cluster formation on the Pt(111) surface can be formulated where kink sites nucleate chains along the top of step edges, consistent with the experimental findings of Morgenstern et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 77 (1996) 703.