Chemical bonding of water to metal surfaces studied with core-level spectroscopies

The nature of the contact layer of water on surfaces is of relevance for many practical fields, including corrosion, electrochemistry, environmental science and heterogeneous catalysis. Here we focus on the geometric and electronic structure of the water contact layer on transition metal surfaces and the interaction between the water monolayer and the surface. By combining synchrotron radiation-based X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) techniques with density functional theory (DFT) computational methods we obtain element-specific information on the partial local density of states, local atomic structure, geometrical parameters and molecular orientation, allowing general principles for water-metal interaction to be derived.