Comprehensive facilitating of water oxidation reaction by ultrasonic attenuation of hydrogen-bonded structure of water

The balance between water-metal interactions and water-water hydrogen bonding (HBs) controls the process of water adsorption on metallic surfaces. In other hand, the yield of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is dependent on the binding energy of H2O at electrode surface. Therefore, on a specific metal substrate, attenuation of HBs may be a promising route for improving OER. In this study, the computational and experimental evidences indicate that the performance of ultrasonically irradiated deionized water (USI-DW), participated in water oxidation reaction (WOR), is different from its in the intact bulk water. To date, establishing of new electrocatalysts with lower overpotentials (η) and higher current densities (J) in OER have been mostly considered based on metals and oxide materials. Here, we ultrasonically agitated the water clusters formed by strong HBs, and as a sustainable improvement route explored its particular effects on the efficiency of OER. The molecular modeling (MM) of the (H2O)n clusters (n = 1-100 molecules), the corresponding IR spectra, the molecular orbitals energy levels and the adsorption of free and cluster confined H2O molecules on the Pt surface were studied by the appropriate quantum mechanical (QM) methods. The result of deconvolution of FTIR spectra recorded for USI-DW in the -OH stretching region (∼2600-3900 cm−1) properly confirmed the expected increase of the single water molecules. The reduction in overpotentials was 82 ± 8 mV and 158 ± 12 mV, to reach the J of 1 mA cm−1 at the typical pHs 12.2 and 13.1, respectively.