Rubbing Powders: Direct Spectroscopic Observation of Triboinduced Oxygen Radical Formation in MgO Nanocube Ensembles

Powder compaction-induced surface chemistry in metal oxide nanocrystal ensembles is important for very diverse fields such as triboelectrics, tribocatalysts, surface abrasion, and cold sintering of ceramics. Using a range of spectroscopic techniques, we show that MgO nanocube powder compaction with uniaxial pressures that can be achieved by gentle manual rubbing or pressing (p ≥ 5 MPa) excites energetic electron-hole pairs and generates oxygen radicals at interfacial defect structures. While the identification of paramagnetic O^- radicals and their adsorption complexes with O₂ point to the emergence of hole centers, triboemitted electrons become scavenged by molecular oxygen to convert into adsorbed superoxide anions O₂ ^- as measured by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). By means of complementary UV-photoexcitation experiments, we found that photon energies in the range between 3 and 6 eV produce essentially the same EPR spectroscopic fingerprints and optical absorption features. To provide insights into this effect, we performed density functional theory calculations to explore the energetics of charge separation involving the ionization of low-coordinated anions and surface-adsorbed O₂ ^- radicals at points of contact. For all selected configurations, charge transfer is not spontaneous but requires an additional driving force. We propose that a plausible mechanism for oxygen radical formation is the generation of significant surface potential differences at points of contact under loading as a result of the highly inhomogeneous elastic deformations coupled with the flexoelectric effect.