Adsorption of organic probes on silica through Lewis interactions: A comparison of experimental results and quantum chemical calculations

The adsorption of organic probe molecules on a partly dehydroxylated silica (SiO2) surface has been studied in a non-aquatic and non-polar environment. These results were compared to, verified and explained by quantum chemical calculations on the same systems. Since the systems are water free and since the non-polar solvent cyclohexane is used in the experiments, the quantum chemical calculations are well comparable to the experimental results without any additional terms. The characterized surface was found to contain both Lewis acid and Lewis base sites and a good agreement between the experimentally determined and the calculated data was found. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.