Chemisorption of HSi(OH)3 on silica surfaces: an ab initio periodic study

The study of the grafting of trialkoxysilane R′Si(OR)₃ molecules on amorphous silica has been undertaken at the Hartree–Fock level using a biperiodic model for the surface. Different types of slab cut out from the model system Edingtonite (a tetragonal silica structure with five SiO₂ groups per unit cell) have been used to simulate isolated and interacting silanol sites at the amorphous silica surface, while only the simple case of HSi(OH)₃ has been considered for the interacting molecule. In a first step, for each type of surface the geometrical parameters have been optimised and the surface formation energy determined. The geometrical structure of the grafted molecule is compared with that of the isolated one. The geometrical strains of the surfaces with either isolated or interacting silanols are also compared before and after the grafting reactions. The calculated values of the chemisorption energies show that the grafting process is favored on isolated silanols only if correlation effects are included.