Molecular orientation of molybdate ions adsorbed on goethite nanoparticles revealed by polarized in situ ATR-IR spectroscopy

Abstract

The speciation of species adsorbed on nanoparticles is a major concern for several fields, as environmental pollution and remediation, surface functionalization, or catalysis. Attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR) was amongst the rare methods able to give in situ information about the geometry of surface complexes on nanoparticles. A new possibility using this technique is illustrated here with the MoO42−/goethite system. Using deuterated goethite to avoid spectral interferences, adsorption of molybdate ions on a spontaneous oriented film of nanoparticles has been followed using a polarized infrared beam. From the decomposition of spectra in the x, y and z directions, a monodentate surface complex on the {101} faces has been found as the most probable geometry. This result demonstrates that polarized ATR-IR allows to characterize in more details adsorption mode at the atomic scale, in comparison with usual ATR-IR spectroscopy.