Influence of strain on water adsorption and dissociation on rutile TiO2(110) surface

The influence of externally applied strain on water adsorption and dissociation on a defect-free rutile TiO2(110) surface is studied by using first-principles calculations. We found that while compressive strain makes water adsorption and dissociation less favorable, tensile strain increases the energy gain of water adsorption, and decreases the energy cost of water dissociation. Specifically, dissociative water becomes more stable than molecular water when an 8% tensile in-plane strain is applied. Moreover, the dissociation barrier decreases with increasing strain more rapidly for more isolated water. The rate of decrease of this barrier for nearly isolated water is 0.017 eV per 1% biaxial strain. This demonstrates that applying strain is a possible way to engineer the surface adsorption and dissociation of water on a TiO2(110) surface, and therefore engineer the relevant surface reactivity.