Ab Initio Prediction of Surface Stability of Fluorite Materials and Experimental Verification

作者：Maldonado P^*; Godinho J R A; Evins L Z; Oppeneer P M

来源：Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2013, 117(13): 6639-6650.

DOI：10.1021/jp312645f

Utilizing first-principle simulations [based on density functional theory (DFT) corrected for on-site Coulomb interactions (DFT+U)], we develop a model to explain the experimental stability in solution of materials having the fluorite structure, such as CaF2 and CeO2. It is shown that the stability of a surface is mainly dependent on its atomic structure and the presence of sites where atoms are deficiently bonded. Using as reference planes the surfaces with low surface formation energies, viz., (111), (100), and (110), our results reveal the relation between the surface energy of any Miller-indexed plane and the surface energy of those reference planes, being dependent on the fluorite surface structure only. Therefore, they follow the same trend for CaF2 and CeO2. Comparison with experimental results shows a correlation between the trends of dry surface energies and surface stabilities during dissolution of both CaF2 and CeO2, even though the chemical processes of dissolution of CeO2 and CaF2 are different. A deviation between ab initio predictions and experiments for some surfaces highlights the sensitivity of the developed model to the treatment of surface dipolar moments.

• 出版日期2013-4-4