ABSTRACT
The interaction of water and silica, the two most abundant compounds on our planet, has always been a subject of research interest in the course of the formation and development of natural sciences, and it covers a wide variety of scientific disciplines. Water/silica reactions play a decisive role in natural processes such as weathering and dissolution. The performance of silica in catalysis largely depends on the density and spatial distribution of hydroxo species at surface. Spectroscopic techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, infrared and Raman spectroscopy are primarily used for investigating hydrated silicas. The formation of water ordered structures has been reported for noble metal surfaces using STM at low temperatures. Electron bombardment of relatively thick ASW films causes, in essence, no effect on the amount of surface hydroxyls formed after subsequent heating of the bombarded sample to the room temperature to desorb unreacted water molecules.
