Computational modeling of the adsorption and photodegradation of 4-chlorophenol on anatase TiO2 particles

In the present work, the adsorption and photodegradation of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) on the (100) surface of TiO2 anatase with semiempirical SCF MO method MSINDO has been investigated. The (100) surface is modeled with free clusters (TiO2)n, where n = 20-80. The surface lattice titanium atoms, which are Lewis acid sites, are considered as adsorption sites. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been used for the investigation of 4-CP adsorption conformations and the surface reaction mechanism studies. The 4-CP molecule has revealed parallel adsorption upon optimization, whereas under excitation conditions the perpendicular configuration is dominant. The aromatic ring cleavage by atomic oxygen has been studied computationally and accordingly, the relevant mechanism was suggested. By comparison with experimental and other theoretical calculations, it is shown that MSINDO can reproduce literature data with acceptable accuracy.