The Effect of Electric Fields on Oxidization Processes at the Air-Water Interface

At the air-water interface, many reactions are accelerated, sometimes by several orders of magnitude. This phenomenon has proved to be particularly important in water microdroplets, where the spontaneous oxidation of many species stable in bulk has been experimentally demonstrated. Different theories have been proposed to explain this finding, but it is currently believed that the role of interfacial electric fields is key. In this work, we have carried out a quantum chemistry study aimed at shedding some light on this question. We have studied two prototypical processes in which a hydroxide anion transfers its excess electron to either the water environment or a dioxygen molecule. To model the interface, we use a cluster of 21 water molecules immersed in an electric field, and we examine the energetics of the studied reactions as a function of field magnitude. Our results reveal that electric fields close to those estimated for the neat air-water interface (∼0.15 V ⋅ Å^-1) have a moderate effect on the reaction energetics and that much stronger fields (>1 V ⋅ Å^-1) are required to get spontaneous electron transfer. Therefore, the study suggests that additional factors such as an excess charge in microdroplets need to be considered for explaining the experimental observations.