Towards decoding the structure of the water-magnetite interface

HypothesisThe molecular structure of water at iron-oxide interfaces is determined by the protonation state, orientation and population of interfacial OH species. These microscopic features can be decoded by combining surface-specific vibrational spectroscopy with reactive and accurate molecular dynamics simulations. In this way, it could be possible to connect the measured nonlinear optical response to specific molecular configurations at the magnetite-water interface, resolving the interfacial water structure. Experiments and simulationsWe investigated magnetite films in contact with liquid water at neutral and alkaline pH using phase-resolved sum-frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy in the OH/OD stretching region and Fresnel correction of the optical response. In parallel, neural-network-potential molecular dynamics simulations were used to model the water-magnetite interface and identify interfacial water species, quantify their orientations, hydrogen-bonding environments and lifetimes, and compute species resolved SFG spectra. FindingsThe combined analysis assigns distinct spectral features to dissociated surface OH groups, hydroxyls and water molecules adsorbed on octahedral iron sites, water bound at dissociation sites and water molecules above tetrahedral rows. The simulations reveal a reactive interfacial hydroxyl network with nanosecond-scale rearrangements and strong species-dependent hydrogen bonding. Experimentally, the SFG spectra show pronounced pH dependence, consistent with changes in surface charge and hydroxylation. A systematic difference between measured and computed SFG spectra indicates that the assumed surface model of magnetite does not fully represent the aqueous interface. This discrepancy provides a molecular constraint for improved models of magnetite-water interfaces and highlights SFG spectroscopy/ML-MD comparison as a valuable route to resolving oxide-water interfacial structures.