Platinum–Water Interaction Induced Interfacial Water Orientation That Governs the pH-Dependent Hydrogen Oxidation Reaction

Understanding the electrode-water interface structure in acid and alkali is crucial to unveiling the underlying mechanism of pH-dependent hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) kinetics. In this work, we construct the explicit Pt(111)-H₂O interface models in both acid and alkali to investigate the relationship between the HOR mechanism and electrode-electrolyte interface structure using ab initio molecular dynamics and density functional theory. We find that the interfacial water orientation in the outer Helmholtz layer (OHP) induced by the Pt-water interaction governs the pH-dependent HOR kinetics on Pt(111). In alkali, the strong Pt-interfacial water electrostatic interaction behaves as a narrow OHP, which increases the proportion of "H-down" interfacial water and leads to less adsorbed water entering the inner Helmholtz plane (IHP), decreasing the work function of Pt(111). Furthermore, the more "H-down" interfacial water stabilizes the H_ad adsorption, prevents H_ad desorption, and suppresses the Volmer step of HOR by forming the solvated [H_ad···H₂O···H₂O] complex. Our work provided a visualized molecular-level mechanism to understand the nature of pH-dependent HOR kinetics.