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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 72: Solid-Liquid Interfaces: Reactions and Electrochemistry

O 72.9: Poster

Wednesday, March 9, 2016, 18:15–20:30, Poster A

Towards understanding the mechanism of water splitting on TiO₂ — •Simon J. Schmitt, Saman Hosseinpour, and Ellen H.G. Backus — Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, Mainz, Germany

Finding a clean and renewable energy source to replace fossil fuels has attracted much attention, the past few decades, as a requirement for the sustainable development of societies. Direct hydrogen generation on TiO₂ by photocatalytic dissociation of water using sunlight was already proposed more than 40 years ago. However, despite extensive work in this area, the fundamentals of the process remain ill-understood, mainly due to the lack of a proper tool to specifically explore the interface between water and TiO₂. Sum frequency generation spectroscopy (SFG), is an inherently surface sensitive tool, allowing the study of specifically the water molecules at the TiO₂ surface. We present data on water in contact with TiO₂ thin films at various pH values and isotopic dilution and correlate the spectral observations with surface species. Moreover, we show first UV-pump-SFG-probe data, illustrating the first steps towards following the photo-induced dissociation of water at the TiO₂ interface in real-time.