Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Interfaces between minerals and water play a vital role in many geochemical and industrial processes such as dissolution and growth, sorption of heavy metals and organic contaminants, heterogeneous catalysis, corrosion, and many more. Due in part to its simple geometric structure, MgO (periclase) is a useful model system for understanding how the interaction between specific surface structure and water yield macroscopic observables such as wettability. Here we report the first vibrational sum frequency generation (vSFG) spectroscopy study of MgO (100) and (111) single crystal surfaces, using hydrated conditions both in the ambient atmosphere and in contact with a bulk aqueous fluid. Although most metal oxide surfaces are hydroxylated and strongly interacting with water, for MgO crystal surfaces in air or water vibrational sum frequency generation (vSFG) spectra show the presence of strong non-H-bonded OH stretching vibrations (~ 3700 cm− 1), suggesting an unusual molecularly hydrophobicity.
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3213497442