Water adsorption on SrTiO3(001): II. Water, water, everywhere

► DFT is used to calculate surface energies for dry and hydrated SrTiO3(001) surfaces. ► Low-energy H2O adsorption geometries are identified for Ti-rich reconstructions. ► The formation of the low-energy dry RT2 structure is found to be kinetically limited. ► Surface reconstruction depends on competition of dehydration and desorption kinetics. ► XPS spectra support relative H2O adsorption behavior for 2 × 1 and c(4 × 2) surfaces.