Experimental and DFT studies of the conversion of ethanol and acetic acid on PtSn-based catalysts

Reaction kinetics studies were conducted for the conversions of ethanol and acetic acid over silica-supported Pt and Pt/Sn catalysts at temperatures from 500 to 600 K. Addition of Sn to Pt catalysts inhibits the decomposition of ethanol to CO, CH4, and C2H6, such that PtSn-based catalysts are active for dehydrogenation of ethanol to acetaldehyde. Furthermore, PtSn-based catalysts are selective for the conversion of acetic acid to ethanol, acetaldehyde, and ethyl acetate, whereas Pt catalysts lead mainly to decomposition products such as CH4 and CO. These results are interpreted using density functional theory (DFT) calculations for various adsorbed species and transition states on Pt(111) and Pt3Sn(111) surfaces. The Pt3Sn alloy slab was selected for DFT studies because results from in situ (119)Sn M?ssbauer spectroscopy and CO adsorption microcalorimetry of silica-supported Pt/Sn catalysts indicate that Pt-Sn alloy is the major phase present. Accordingly, results from DFT calculations show that transition-state energies for C-O and C-C bond cleavage in ethanol-derived species increase by 25-60 kJ/mol on Pt3Sn(111) compared to Pt(111), whereas energies of transition states for dehydrogenation reactions increase by only 5-10 kJ/mol. Results from DFT calculations show that transition-state energies for CH3CO-OH bond cleavage increase by only 12 kJ/mol on Pt3Sn(111) compared to Pt(111). The suppression of C-C bond cleavage in ethanol and acetic acid upon addition of Sn to Pt is also confirmed by microcalorimetric and infrared spectroscopic measurements at 300 K of the interactions of ethanol and acetic acid with Pt and PtSn on a silica support that had been silylated to remove silanol groups.     

Coverage dependence and hydroperoxyl-mediated pathway of catalytic water formation on Pt (111) surface

Hydrogen oxidation on Pt (111) surface is modeled by density functional theory (DFT). Previous DFT calculations showed too large O2 dissociation barriers, but we find them highly coverage dependent: when the coverage is low, dissociation barriers close to experimental values (approximately 0.3 eV) are obtained. For the whole reaction, a new pathway involving hydroperoxyl (OOH) intermediate is found, with the highest reaction barrier of only approximately 0.4 eV. This may explain the experimental observation of catalytic water formation on Pt (111) surface above the H2O desorption temperature of 170 K, despite that the direct reaction between chemisorbed O and H atoms is a highly activated process with barrier approximately 1 eV as previous calculations showed.     

Density functional theory and CCSD(T) evaluation of ionization potentials,redox potentials,and bond energies related to zirconocene polymerization catalysts

Quantum-mechanical-based computational design of molecular catalysts requires accurate and fast electronic structure calculations to determine and predict properties of transition-metal complexes. For Zr-based molecular complexes related to polyethylene catalysis, previous evaluation of density functional theory (DFT) and wavefunction methods only examined oxides and halides or select reaction barrier heights. In this work, we evaluate the performance of DFT against experimental redox potentials and bond dissociation enthalpies (BDEs) for zirconocene complexes directly relevant to ethylene polymerization catalysis. We also examined the ability of DFT to compute the fourth atomic ionization potential of zirconium and the effect the basis set selection has on the ionization potential computed with CCSD(T). Generally, the atomic ionization potential and redox potentials are very well reproduced by DFT, but we discovered relatively large deviations of DFT-calculated BDEs compared to experiment. However, evaluation of BDEs with CCSD(T) suggests that experimental values should be revisited, and our CCSD(T) values should be taken as most accurate.     

Maximum Noble‐Metal Efficiency in Catalytic Materials: Atomically Dispersed Surface Platinum

Platinum is the most versatile element in catalysis, but it is rare and its high price limits large‐scale applications, for example in fuel‐cell technology. Still, conventional catalysts use only a small fraction of the Pt content, that is, those atoms located at the catalyst’s surface. To maximize the noble‐metal efficiency, the precious metal should be atomically dispersed and exclusively located within the outermost surface layer of the material. Such atomically dispersed Pt surface species can indeed be prepared with exceptionally high stability. Using DFT calculations we identify a specific structural element, a ceria “nanopocket”, which binds Pt²⁺ so strongly that it withstands sintering and bulk diffusion. On model catalysts we experimentally confirm the theoretically predicted stability, and on real Pt‐CeO₂ nanocomposites showing high Pt efficiency in fuel‐cell catalysis we also identify these anchoring sites.     

Benchmark database of barrier heights for heavy atom transfer, nucleophilic substitution, association, and unimolecular reactions and its use to test theoretical methods

A benchmark database of forward and reverse barrier heights for 19 non-hydrogen-transfer reactions has been developed by using Weizmann 1 calculations, and 29 DFT methods and 6 ab initio wave-function theory (WFT) methods have been tested against the new database as well as against an older database for hydrogen atom transfer reactions. Among the tested hybrid DFT methods without kinetic energy density, MPW1K is the most accurate model for calculations of barrier heights. Among the tested hybrid meta DFT methods, BB1K and MPWB1K are the two most accurate models for the calculations of barrier heights. Overall, the results show that BB1K and MPWB1K are the two best DFT methods for calculating barrier heights, followed in order by MPW1K, MPWKCIS1K, B1B95, MPW1B95, BH and HLYP, B97-2, mPW1PW91, and B98. The popular B3LYP method has a mean unsigned error four times larger than that of BB1K. Of the methods tested, QCISD(T) is the best ab initio WFT method for barrier height calculations, and QCISD is second best, but QCISD is outperformed by the BB1K, MPWB1K, MPWKCIS1K, and MPW1K methods.     

Cu-Pt-Au三元合金催化水煤气变换反应的密度泛函研究

利用密度泛函理论（DFT）研究了不同掺杂量的Cu-Pt-Au催化剂性质及水煤气变换反应（WGSR）在催化剂表面上的反应机理。首先对Cu-Au和Pt-Au二元催化剂的稳定性和电子活性进行研究,发现Pt-Au催化剂的协同效应较优,稳定性更优,结合能为77.15 eV,d带中心为-3.18 eV。当将Cu继续掺杂到Pt-Au合金中构成Cu-Pt-Au三元催化剂时,Cu₃-Pt₃-Au（111）结合能为77.99 eV,且d带中心为-3.05 eV,表明其具有较优的稳定性和电子活性。探讨了WGSR在Cu₃-Pt₃-Au（111）上的反应历程,氧化还原机理因CO氧化的能垒达到4.84 eV而不易进行。CHO和COOH两个中间体为竞争关系,且形成CHO中间物时的能垒较小,因此,反应相对容易按照甲酸机理进行。     

Phosphorene Supported Single-Atom Catalysts for CO Oxidation: A Computational Study

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have attracted extensive attention owing to their high catalytic activity. The development of efficient SACs is crucial for applications in heterogeneous catalysis. In this article, the geometric configuration, electronic structure, stabilitiy and catalytic performance of phosphorene (Pn) supported single metal atoms (M=Ru, Rh, Pd, Ir, Pt, and Au) have been systematically investigated using density functional theory calculations and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. The single atoms are found to occupy the hollow site of phosphorene. Among the catalysts studied, Ru-decorated phosphorene is determined to be a potential catalyst by evaluating adsorption energies of gaseous molecules. Various mechanisms including the Eley-Rideal (ER), Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) and trimolecular Eley-Rideal (TER) mechanisms are considered to validate the most favourable reaction pathway. Our results reveal that Ru−Pn exhibits outstanding catalytic activity toward CO oxidation reaction via TER mechanism with the corresponding rate-determining energy barrier of 0.44 eV, making it a very promising SAC for CO oxidation under mild conditions. Overall, this work may provide a new avenue for the design and fabrication of two-dimensional materials supported SACs for low-temperature CO oxidation.     

Thermodynamics and kinetics of oxygen-induced segregation of 3d metals in Pt-3d-Pt(111) and Pt-3d-Pt(100) bimetallic structures

The stability of subsurface 3d transition metals (3d represents Ni, Co, Fe, Mn, Cr, V, and Ti) in Pt(111) and Pt(100) was examined in vacuum and with 0.5 ML atomic oxygen by a combined experimental and density functional theory (DFT) approach. DFT was used to predict the trends in the binding energy of oxygen and in the stability of 3d metals to remain in the subsurface layer. DFT calculations predicted that for both (111) and (100) crystal planes the subsurface Pt-3d-Pt configurations were thermodynamically preferred in vacuum and that the surface 3d-Pt-Pt configurations were preferred with the adsorption of 0.5 ML atomic oxygen. Experimentally, the DFT predictions were verified by using Auger electron spectroscopy to monitor the segregation of Ni and Co in Pt-3d-Pt structures on polycrystalline Pt foil, composed of mainly (111) and (100) facets. The activation barrier for the oxygen-induced segregation of Ni was found to be 17+/-1 kcal/mol attributed to the Pt(111) areas and 27+/-1 kcal/mol attributed to the Pt(100) areas of the Pt foil. For Pt-Co-Pt, the activation barrier was found to be 10+/-1 kcal/mol and was attributed to the Pt(111) areas of the Pt foil. The Bronsted-Evans-Polanyi relationship was utilized to predict the activation barriers for segregation of the other Pt-3d-Pt(111) and Pt-3d-Pt(100) systems. These results are further discussed in connection to the activity and stability for cathode bimetallic electrocatalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells.     

Benchmark study of popular density functionals for calculating binding energies of three-center two-electron bonds

Density functional theory (DFT) can be used to study the three-center two-electron (3c2e) bonding mode, which is universal in catalysts containing alkaline-earth (Ae) and boron-group (Bg) elements. However, because of the delocalization pattern of the 3c2e bond, the wavefunction cannot be accurately described by DFT methods. The calculated energies of Ae and Bg catalysts therefore fluctuate greatly when different functionals are used, largely because of inconsistent DFT-calculated binding energies of 3c2e bonds. Nevertheless, with the development of supercomputers and theoretical calculation software, the DFT method is becoming increasingly popular for studying Ae and Bg catalysts. In this study, we compared the performances of 21 functionals with the high-level composite G3B3 method in calculations for the binding energies of 3c2e bonds. Several frequently used post-Hartree–Fock methods were also tested. The calculation results indicate that the M06-2X, MN12-L, and MN15 functionals give consistent and reliable binding energies for common 3c2e bonds. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A Single‐Atom Nanozyme for Wound Disinfection Applications

Single‐atom catalysts (SACs), as homogeneous catalysts, have been widely explored for chemical catalysis. However, few studies focus on the applications of SACs in enzymatic catalysis. Herein, we report that a zinc‐based zeolitic‐imidazolate‐framework (ZIF‐8)‐derived carbon nanomaterial containing atomically dispersed zinc atoms can serve as a highly efficient single‐atom peroxidase mimic. To reveal its structure–activity relationship, the structural evolution of the single‐atom nanozyme (SAzyme) was systematically investigated. Furthermore, the coordinatively unsaturated active zinc sites and catalytic mechanism of the SAzyme are disclosed using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The SAzyme, with high therapeutic effect and biosafety, shows great promises for wound antibacterial applications.     

A first principles study of oxygen reduction reaction on a Pt(111) surface modified by a subsurface transition metal M (M = Ni, Co, or Fe)

We have performed first-principle density functional theory calculations to investigate how a subsurface transition metal M (M = Ni, Co, or Fe) affects the energetics and mechanisms of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on the outermost Pt mono-surface layer of Pt/M(111) surfaces. In this work, we found that the subsurface Ni, Co, and Fe could down-shift the d-band center of the Pt surface layer and thus weaken the binding of chemical species to the Pt/M(111) surface. Moreover, the subsurface Ni, Co, and Fe could modify the heat of reaction and activation energy of various elementary reactions of ORR on these Pt/M(111) surfaces. Our DFT results revealed that, due to the influence of the subsurface Ni, Co, and Fe, ORR would adopt a hydrogen peroxide dissociation mechanism with an activation energy of 0.15 eV on Pt/Ni(111), 0.17 eV on Pt/Co(111), and 0.16 eV on Pt/Fe(111) surface, respectively, for their rate-determining O2 protonation reaction. In contrast, ORR would follow a peroxyl dissociation mechanism on a pure Pt(111) surface with an activation energy of 0.79 eV for its rate-determining O protonation reaction. Thus, our theoretical study explained why the subsurface Ni, Co, and Fe could lead to multi-fold enhancement in catalytic activity for ORR on the Pt mono-surface layer of Pt/M(111) surfaces.     

Influence of PtMo Structure and Composition on the Adsorption Energies, Adsorption Site and Vibrational Frequency of Carbon Monoxide

Density functional theory periodic slab calculations were carried out for CO adsorption on a series of Mo modified Pt(111) surfaces to provide an insight into the interaction between CO and doped metal surface, an important issue in CO oxidation as well as in promotion and poisoning effects of catalysis. The modification of adsorption properties with respect to those of adsorption on the pure Mo(110) and Pt(111) is described in terms of changes in the adsorption energies, adsorption sites and vibrational properties occurring upon alloying. We believe that the present DFT calculations can provide important information into optimal alloy composition for CO-tolerance, which is not easily obtained by experimental methods.     

A First‐Principle Calculation of Sulfur Oxidation on Metallic Ni(111) and Pt(111), and Bimetallic Ni@Pt(111) and Pt@Ni(111) Surfaces

Sulfur, a pollutant known to poison fuel‐cell electrodes, generally comes from S‐containing species such as hydrogen sulfide (H₂S). The S‐containing species become adsorbed on a metal electrode and leave atomic S strongly bound to the metal surface. This surface sulfur is completely removed typically by oxidation with O₂ into gaseous SO₂. According to our DFT calculations, the oxidation of sulfur at 0.25 ML surface sulfur coverage on pure Pt(111) and Ni(111) metal surfaces is exothermic. The barriers to the formation of SO₂ are 0.41 and 1.07 eV, respectively. Various metals combined to form bimetallic surfaces are reported to tune the catalytic capabilities toward some reactions. Our results show that it is more difficult to remove surface sulfur from a Ni@Pt(111) surface with reaction barrier 1.86 eV for SO₂ formation than from a Pt@Ni(111) surface (0.13 eV). This result is in good agreement with the statement that bimetallic surfaces could demonstrate more or less activity than to pure metal surfaces by comparing electronic and structural effects. Furthermore, by calculating the reaction free energies we found that the sulfur oxidation reaction on the Pt@Ni(111) surface exhibits the best spontaneity of SO₂ desorption at either room temperature or high temperatures.     

Reaction mechanism of methanol decomposition on Pt‐based model catalysts: A theoretical study

The decomposition mechanisms of methanol on five different Pt surfaces, the flat surface of Pt(111), Pt‐defect, Pt‐step, Pt(110)(1 × 1), and Pt(110)(2 × 1), have been studied with the DFT‐GGA method using the repeated slab model. The adsorption energies under the most stable configuration of the possible species and the activation energy barriers of the possible elementary reactions involved are obtained in this work. Through systematic calculations for the reaction mechanism of methanol decomposition on these surfaces, we found that such a reaction shows the same reaction mechanism on these Pt‐based model catalysts, that is, the final products are all H (H_ads) and CO (CO_ads) via O? H bond breaking in methanol and C? H bond scission in methoxy. These results are in general agreement with the previous experimental observations. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010.     

Barrier heights of hydrogen‐transfer reactions with diffusion quantum monte carlo method

Hydrogen‐transfer reactions are an important class of reactions in many chemical and biological processes. Barrier heights of H‐transfer reactions are underestimated significantly by popular exchange–correlation functional with density functional theory (DFT), while coupled‐cluster (CC) method is quite expensive and can be applied only to rather small systems. Quantum Monte‐Carlo method can usually provide reliable results for large systems. Performance of fixed‐node diffusion quantum Monte‐Carlo method (FN‐DMC) on barrier heights of the 19 H‐transfer reactions in the HTBH38/08 database is investigated in this study with the trial wavefunctions of the single‐Slater–Jastrow form and orbitals from DFT using local density approximation. Our results show that barrier heights of these reactions can be calculated rather accurately using FN‐DMC and the mean absolute error is 1.0 kcal/mol in all‐electron calculations. Introduction of pseudopotentials (PP) in FN‐DMC calculations improves efficiency pronouncedly. According to our results, error of the employed PPs is smaller than that of the present CCSD(T) and FN‐DMC calculations. FN‐DMC using PPs can thus be applied to investigate H‐transfer reactions involving larger molecules reliably. In addition, bond dissociation energies of the involved molecules using FN‐DMC are in excellent agreement with reference values and they are even better than results of the employed CCSD(T) calculations using the aug‐cc‐pVQZ basis set. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Binding maps for the study and prediction of bimetallic catalyst surface reactions: The case of methanol oxidation

Focusing on the competing pathways of methanol oxidation on platinum and platinum/gold bimetallic catalysts, we explore a novel density functional theory (DFT)‐based approach to the study of reactions on catalyst surfaces. Traditionally, DFT has been used to compute binding energies of products and intermediates as proxies for catalytic activity, and to compute full reaction pathways and their activation energy barriers. Merging the computational simplicity and intuitive clarity of binding energy calculations with the site sensitivity of transition state calculations, we construct maps of the binding energies of relevant atoms and molecules at all sites on a surface. We show that knowledge of the arrangement of strong and weak binding sites on a surface is powerful in rationalizing the ease with which a reaction step proceeds on a given local motif of surface atoms. We highlight the prospects and challenges of this approach toward catalyst screening and prediction.     

Density functional calculation of core‐electron binding energies of isomers of C3H6O2 and C3H5NO

The core‐electron binding energies of six isomers of C₃H₆O₂ and four isomers of C₃H₅NO were calculated by a DFT/uGTS/scaled‐pVTZ approach. An average absolute deviation from experiment of 0.15 eV was found for 14 C, N, and O 1s energies. The results confirm the distinctive nature of the X‐ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) of isomers and support the use of electron spectroscopy complemented by accurate theoretical predictions as a tool for chemical analysis. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 76: 44–50, 2000     

Dynamics of the dissociation of hydrogen on stepped platinum surfaces using the ReaxFF reactive force field

The dissociation of hydrogen on eight platinum surfaces, Pt(111), Pt(100), Pt(110), Pt(211), Pt(311), Pt(331), Pt(332), and Pt(533), has been studied using molecular dynamics and the reactive force field, ReaxFF. The force field, which includes the degrees of freedom of the atoms in the platinum substrate, was used unmodified with potential parameters determined from previous calculations performed on a training set exclusive of the surfaces considered in this work. The energetics of the eight surfaces in the absence of hydrogen at 0 K were first compared to previous density functional theory (DFT) calculations and found to underestimate excess surface energy. However, taking Pt(111) as a reference state, we found that the trend between surfaces was adequately predicted to justify a relative comparison between the various stepped surfaces. To assess the strengths and weaknesses of the force field, we performed detailed simulations on two stepped surfaces, Pt(533) and Pt(211), and compared our findings to published experimental and theoretical results. In general, the absolute magnitude of reaction rate predictions was low, a result of the force field's tendency to underpredict surface energy. However, when normalized, the simulations show the correct linear scaling with incident energy and angular dependence at collision energies where a direct dissociation mechanism is observed. Because ReaxFF includes all degrees of freedom in the substrate, we carried out simulations aimed at understanding surface-temperature effects on Pt(533). On the basis of the results on Pt(533)/Pt(211), we studied the reaction of hydrogen at normal incidence on all eight surfaces in a range of energies where we anticipated the force field to give reasonable qualitative trends. These results were subsequently fit to a simple linear model that predicts the enhanced reactivity of surfaces containing 111-type atomic steps versus 100-type atomic steps. This model provides a simple framework for predicting high-energy/high-temperature kinetics of complex surfaces not vicinal to Pt(111).