The role of hydrogen bonding in water–metal interactions

The hydrogen bond interaction between water molecules adsorbed on a Pd 〈111〉 surface, a nucleator of two dimensional ordered water arrays at low temperatures, is studied using density functional theory calculations. The role of the exchange and correlation density functional in the characterization of both the hydrogen bond and the water–metal interaction is analyzed in detail. The effect of non local correlations using the van der Waals density functional proposed by Dion et al. [M. Dion, H. Rydberg, E. Schröder, D. C. Langreth and B. I. Lundqvist, Phys. Rev. Lett., 2004, 92, 246401] is also studied. We conclude that the choice of this potential is critical in determining the cohesive energy of water–metal complexes. We show that the interaction between water molecules and the metal surface is as sensitive to the density functional choice as hydrogen bonds between water molecules are. The reason for this is that the two interactions are very similar in nature. We make a detailed analogy between the water–water bond in the water dimer and the water–Pd bond at the Pd 〈111〉 surface. Our results show a strong similarity between these two interactions and based on this we describe the water–Pd bond as a hydrogen bond type interaction. These results demonstrate the need to obtain an accurate and reliable representation of the hydrogen bond interaction in density functional theory.