The plausible role of carbonate in photo-catalytic water oxidation processes.

DFT calculations point out that the photo-oxidation of water on GaN is energetically considerably facilitated by adsorbed carbonate. As the redox potential of the couple CO3(˙-)/CO3(2-) is considerably lower than that of the couple OH˙/OH(-) but still enables the oxidation of water it is suggested that carbonate should be considered as a catalyst/co-catalyst in a variety of catalytic/photo-catalytic/electro-catalytic oxidation processes.