In this work, they study the interaction between small water aggregates and hydroxylated graphite surfaces by means of quantum calculations. The hydroxylated graphite surfaces are modelled by anchoring OH groups on the face side or on the edges of a graphite crystallite of nanometer size. The quantum calculations based on the ONIOM approach aim at characterizing the adsorption properties (structure and adsorption energy) of small water aggregates containing up to five water molecules, in order to better understand at a molecular level the role of these OH sites on the hydrophilic properties of graphite surface modelling soot emitted by aircraft.In this Letter, we have studied, by means of ab initio
methods, the adsorption of water molecules on a OH group anchored on the face or on the edges of a graphite
cluster modelling nanometer-size graphite crystallites.
The calculations have been done by using the ONIOM
method that partition the system into a small DFT cluster
including the OH group and its nearest neighbor C
atoms and a PM3 method for the rest of the graphite
cluster. These calculations show that the OH group
can act as a nucleation center for small water aggregates,
containing up to 3–5 molecules, with mean adsorption
energies per water molecule that range between 16.7
and 32.2 kJ/mol above the face, and between 19.3 and
34.2 kJ/mol above the edge of the hydroxylated graphite
cluster. The formation of such small water aggregates is
in agreement with the interpretation of recent experimental
data obtained on different types of soot [8].
The present adsorption energies evidence a much
stronger interaction between water and the hydroxylated
graphite surface than between water and bare
graphite surface (6.8 kJ/mol for a single water molecule
adsorbed on bare graphite [20,21,12], as already shown
above a defective graphite surface containing COOH
groups adsorbed either on the face [11] or on the edge
of graphite clusters (this work and Tarasevich and
Aksenenko [13]). These results indicates that such
hydrophilic groups are active sites for the adsorption
of water molecules on a hydroxylated graphite surface,