Density functional theory investigation of benzenethiol adsorption on Au(111)

We have studied the adsorption of benzenethiol molecules on the Au(111) surface by using first principles total energy calculations. A single thiolate molecule is adsorbed at the bridge site slightly shifted toward the fcc-hollow site, and is tilted by 61 degrees from the surface normal. As for the self-assembled monolayer (SAM) structures, the (2 square root of 3 x square root of 3)R30 degrees herringbone structure is stabilized against the (square root 3 x square root 3)R30 degrees structure by large steric relaxation. In the most stable (2 square root 3 x square root 3)R30 degrees SAM structure, the molecule is adsorbed at the bridge site with the tilting angle of 21 degrees, which is much smaller compared with the single molecule adsorption. The van der Waals interaction plays an important role in forming the SAM structure. The adsorption of benzenethiolates induces the repulsive interaction between surface Au atoms, which facilitates the formation of surface Au vacancy.     

Density functional theory study of the carbonyl-ene reaction of encapsulated formaldehyde in Cu(I), Ag(I), and Au(I) exchanged FAU zeolites

Carbonyl-ene reactions, which involve C-C bond formation, are essential in many chemical syntheses. The formaldehyde-propene reaction catalyzed by several of the group 11 metal cations, Cu(+), Ag(+), and Au(+) exchanged on the faujasite zeolite (metal-FAU) has been investigated by density functional theory at the M06-L/6-31G(d,p) level. The Au-FAU exhibits a higher activity than the others due to the high charge transfer between the Au and the reactant molecules, even though it is located at a negatively charged site of the zeolite. This site enables it to compensate for the charge of the Au(+) ion. The NBO analysis reveals that the 6s orbital of the Au atom plays an important role, inducing a charge on the probe molecules. Moreover, the effect of the zeolite framework makes the Au-FAU more active than the others by stabilizing the high charge induced transition structure. The activation energy of the reaction catalyzed by Au-FAU is 13.0 kcal/mol whereas that of Cu and Ag-FAU is found to be around 17 kcal/mol. The product desorption needs to be improved for Au-FAU; however, we suggest that catalysts with high charge transfer might provide a promising activity.     

An Electron‐Rich Cyclic (Alkyl)(Amino)Carbene on Au(111), Ag(111), and Cu(111) Surfaces

The structural properties and binding motif of a strongly σ‐electron‐donating N‐heterocyclic carbene have been investigated on different transition‐metal surfaces. The examined cyclic (alkyl)(amino)carbene (CAAC) was found to be mobile on surfaces, and molecular islands with short‐range order could be found at high coverage. A combination of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and density functional theory (DFT) calculations highlights how CAACs bind to the surface, which is of tremendous importance to gain an understanding of heterogeneous catalysts bearing CAACs as ligands.     

Density functional theory study of water adsorption at reduced and stoichiometric ceria (111) surfaces

We study the structure and energetics of water molecules adsorbed at ceria (111) surfaces for 0.5 and 1.0 ML coverages using density functional theory. The results of this study provide a theoretical framework for interpreting recent experimental results on the redox properties of water at ceria (111) surfaces. In particular, we have computed the structure and energetics of various absorption geometries at the stoichiometric ceria (111) surface. We find that single hydrogen bonds between the water and the oxide surface are favored in all cases. At stoichiometric surfaces, the water adsorption energy depends rather weakly on coverage. We predict that the observed coverage dependence of the water adsorption energy at stoichiometric surfaces is likely the result of dipole-dipole interactions between adsorbed water molecules. When oxygen vacancies are introduced in various surface layers, water molecules are attracted more strongly to the surface. We find that it is very slightly energetically favorable for adsorbed water to oxidized the reduced (111) surface with the evolution of H(2). In the event that water does not oxidize the surface, we predict that the effective attractive water-vacancy interaction will result in a significant enhancement of the vacancy concentration at the surface in agreement with experimental observations. Finally, we present our results in the context of recent experimental and theoretical studies of vacancy clustering at the (111) ceria surface.     

DFT study of gas-phase adsorption of benzotriazole on Cu(111), Cu(100), Cu(110), and low coordinated defects thereon

The adsorption of benzotriazole--an outstanding corrosion inhibitor for copper--on Cu(111), Cu(100), Cu(110), and low coordinated defects thereon has been studied and characterized using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We find that benzotriazole can either chemisorb in an upright geometry or physisorb with the molecular plane being nearly parallel to the surface. While the magnitude of chemisorption energy increases as passing from densely packed Cu(111) to more open surfaces and low coordinated defects, the physisorption energy is instead rather similar on all three low Miller index surfaces. It is pointed out that due to a large dipole moment of benzotriazole the dipole-dipole interactions are rather important. For perpendicular chemisorption modes the lateral repulsion is very long ranged, extending up to the nearest-neighbor distance of about 60 bohrs, whereas for parallel adsorption modes the lateral interactions are far less pronounced and the molecules experience a weak attraction at distances ?25 bohrs. The chemisorption energies were therefore extrapolated to zero coverage by a recently developed scheme and the resulting values are -0.60, -0.73, and -0.92 eV for Cu(111), Cu(100), and Cu(110), respectively, whereas the zero-coverage physisorption energy is about -0.7 eV irrespective of the surface plane. While the more densely packed surfaces are not reactive enough to interact with the molecular π-system, the reactivity of Cu(110) appears to be at the onset of such interaction, resulting in a very stable parallel adsorption structure with an adsorption energy of -1.3 eV that is ascribed as an apparent chemisorption+physisorption mode.     

Density functional study of ethylene oxidation on an Ag(111) surface

The mechanism of ethylene epoxidation on Ag surfaces has been investigated using the density functional method and Ag _n clusters (n = 3 to 10) modeling the Ag(111) surface. The adsorption energy of O₂ to the Ag clusters was strongly dependent on the HOMO level of the cluster, and the clusters with higher HOMO levels afforded larger O₂ adsorption energies. The energetics was investigated for both the molecular and atomic oxygen epoxidation mechanisms. For the atomic oxygen mechanism, epoxidation was found to proceed without an activation energy, whereas a small amount of activation energy (about 5 kcal/mol) was calculated for the molecular oxygen mechanism. Received: 2 July 1998 / Accepted: 9 September 1998 / Published online: 8 February 1999     

The reaction pathways for HSCH3 adsorption on Au(111): a density functional theory study

Density functional theory was used to investigate the reaction pathways for HSCH(3) adsorption on Au(111) at low coverage. A molecular adsorbed state was found with the S atom bond on Top sites (E approximately -0.38 eV) and molecular adsorption is nonactivated. The H-SCH(3) dissociation process is energetically less favorable and becomes slightly exothermic only when surface relaxation is considered (DeltaE approximately -0.2 eV). All the reaction pathways present a sizable activation energy barrier, with the lowest being approximately 0.52 eV (0.41 eV taking into account slab relaxation). In the corresponding saddle point of the potential energy surface, the S atom of the methylthiolate molecule is placed on Top sites and the H near a Bridge site. The high barrier obtained explains the complete absence of reactive methanethiol dissociation found in recent experiments.     

Structure and bonding of alkanethiols on Cu(111) and Cu(100)

The local structure of the sulfur atom of methanethiolate and ethanethiolate on the Cu(111) and Cu(100) surfaces was investigated from first principles employing the periodic supercell approach in the framework of density functional theory. On the 111 surface, we investigated the (square root 3 x square root 3)R30 degrees and (2 x 2) structures, whereas on the 100 surface, we investigated the p(2 x 2) and c(2 x 2) structures. The landscape of the potential energy surface on each metal surface presents distinctive features that explain the local adsorption structure of thiolates found experimentally. On the Cu(111) surface, the energy difference between the hollow and bridge sites is only 3 kcal/mol, and consequently, adsorption sites ranging from the hollow to the bridge site were observed for increasing surface coverages. On the Cu(100) surface, there is a large energy difference of 12 kcal/mol between the hollow and bridge sites, and therefore, only the 4-fold coordination was observed. The high stabilization of thiolates on the hollow site of Cu(100) may be the driving force for the pseudosquare reconstruction observed experimentally on Cu(111). Density of states analysis and density difference plots were employed to characterize the bonding on different surface sites. Upon interaction with the metal d bands, the pi* orbital of methanethiolate splits into several peaks. The two most prominent peaks are located on either edge of the metal d band. They correspond to bonding and antibonding S-Cu interactions. In the case of ethanethiolate, all the back-bonds are affected by the surface bonding, leading to alternating regions of depletion and accumulation of charge in the successive bonds.     

Density functional embedded cluster study of Cu(4), Ag(4) and Au(4) species interacting with oxygen vacancies on the MgO(001) surface

Cu(4), Ag(4), and Au(4) species adsorbed on an MgO(001) surface that exhibits neutral (F(s)) and charged (F(s) (+)) oxygen vacancies have been studied using a density functional approach and advanced embedding models. The gas-phase rhombic-planar structure of the coinage metal tetramers is only moderately affected by adsorption. In the most stable surface configuration, the plane of the tetramers is oriented perpendicular to the MgO(001) surface; one metal atom is attached to an oxygen vacancy and another one is bound to a nearby surface oxygen anion. A very similar structural motif was recently found on defect-free MgO(001), where two O(2-) ions serve as adsorption sites. Following the trend of the interactions with the regular MgO(001) surface, Au(4) and Cu(4) bind substantially stronger to F(s) and F(s) (+) sites than Ag(4). This stronger adsorption interaction at oxygen vacancies, in particular at F(s), is partly due to a notable accumulation of electron density on the adsorbates. We also examined the propensity of small supported metal species to aggregate to adsorbed di-, tri- and tetramers. Furthermore, we demonstrated that core-level ionization potentials offer the possibility for detecting experimentally supported metal tetramers and characterizing them structurally with the help of calculated data.     

Nondissociative chemisorption of short chain alkanethiols on Au(111)

The adsorption of methanethiol and n-propanethiol on the Au(111) surface has been studied by temperature-programmed desorption (TPD), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), and low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (LT-STM). Methanethiol desorbs molecularly from the chemisorbed monolayer at temperatures below 220 K in three overlapping desorption processes. No evidence for S-H or C-S bond cleavage has been found on the basis of three types of observations: (1) A mixture of chemisorbed CH3SD and CD3SH does not yield CD3SD, (2) no sulfur remains after desorption, and (3) no residual surface species remain when the adsorbed layer is heated to 300 K as measured by STM. On the other hand, when defects are introduced on the surface by ion bombardment, the desorption temperature of CH3SH is extended to 300 K and a small amount of dimethyl disulfide is observed to desorb at 410 K, indicating that S-H bond scission occurs on defect sites on Au(111) followed by dimerization of CH3S(a) species. Propanethiol also adsorbs nondissociatively on the Au(111) surface and desorbs from the surface below 250 K.     

Experimental and theoretical study of the adsorption of fumaramide [2]rotaxane on Au(111) and Ag(111) surfaces

Thin films of fumaramide [2]rotaxane, a mechanically interlocked molecule composed of a macrocycle and a thread in a "bead and thread" configuration, were prepared by vapor deposition on both Ag(111) and Au(111) substrates. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and high-resolution electron-energy-loss spectroscopy were used to characterize monolayer and bulklike multilayer films. XPS determination of the relative amounts of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen indicates that the molecule adsorbs intact. On both metal surfaces, molecules in the first adsorbed layer show an additional component in the C 1s XPS line attributed to chemisorption via amide groups. Molecular-dynamics simulation indicates that the molecule orients two of its eight phenyl rings, one from the macrocycle and one from the thread, in a parallel bonding geometry with respect to the metal surfaces, leaving three amide groups very close to the substrate. In the case of fumaramide [2]rotaxane adsorption on Au(111), the presence of certain out-of-plane phenyl ring and Au-O vibrational modes points to such bonding and a preferential molecular orientation. The theoretical and experimental results imply that the three-dimensional intermolecular configuration permits chemisorption at low coverage to be driven by interactions between the three amide functions of fumaramide [2]rotaxane and the Ag(111) or Au(111) surface.     

Density functional theory study of pyrrole adsorption on Mo(110)

The objective of the present study is to identify possible adsorption configurations of pyrrole on Mo(110) using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Several adsorption configurations were studied including pyrrole and pyrrolyl adsorption as parallel, perpendicular, and tilted adsorption modes relative to the Mo(110) surface plane. Based on the DFT calculations, pyrrole is suggested to adsorb in a parallel mode with respect to the Mo(110) surface through its pi-orbital as mu3,eta(5)-Pyr-0 degrees with an adsorption energy of -28.7 to -31.5 kcal mol(-1). The possibility of a coexisting mode where pyrrole adsorbs on the surface with a slightly tilted molecular plane as mu3,eta(4)(N,C2,C3,C4)-Pyr-5 degrees is also likely to occur, particularly at higher pyrrole coverages. The slightly tilted configuration is suggested to arise from the lateral interactions of adsorbed pyrrole on Mo(110), and not the result of a phase transformation on the surface since this requires a relatively high activation energy as indicated by additional linear synchronous transit (LST)/quadratic synchronous transit (QST) calculations. Both adsorption geometries bond to three surface Mo atoms, and Mo(110) did not promote hydrogen abstraction. Pyrrolyl adsorption on Mo(110) is energetically possible, but unlikely to occur because gas-phase hydrogen has not been previously experimentally observed as a pyrrole decomposition product on Mo(110).     

Effect of coverage and defects on the adsorption of propanethiol on Au(111) surface: a theoretical study

Periodic density functional calculations have been carried out to investigate both the thiol adsorption on Au(111) surface and the reaction mechanism for the formation of the self-assembled monolayers, taking propanethiol as a representative example. The effect of coverage and surface defects (adatoms and vacancies) has been analyzed. It is found that the most stable physisorption (undissociated) site is an adatom site, whereas the chemisorption site for the thiol is a vacancy site or protrusion consisting of a pair of adatoms, followed by one adatom site. The results point out that the thiolate self-assembled monolayer adsorption process occurs preferentially on step edges.     

Ge adsorption on Ag(111): A density-functional theory investigation

First-principles density-functional theory has been used to investigate the adsorptions of Ge on Ag(111) surfaces for a wide range of coverage. Preferred adsorption sites, adsorption energies, surface structures, and the electronic properties are studied. Our results show that adsorption on the surface in fcc- sites is energetically favorable. The adsorption energies decrease as increasing Ge atoms, while the work functions of Ag surface decrease. The contour maps of the difference charge show that there exists covalent bonding in lower coverage systems to some extent for Ge on Ag(111) surface, and the interaction of Ge and Ag atoms becomes weaker with the increase of adsorption degree. The calculated density of states indicates that the adsorption structures have metallic character, while the number of electron transition is small and the interaction is not strong between Ge and Ag atoms.     

Density functional theory study of CHx (x=1-3) adsorption on clean and CO precovered Rh(111) surfaces

CH(x) (x=1-3) adsorptions on clean and CO precovered Rh(111) surfaces were studied by density functional theory calculations. It is found that CH(x) (x=1-3) radicals prefer threefold hollow sites on Rh(111) surfaces, and the bond strength between CH(x) and Rh(111) follows the order of CH(3)相似文献   

Selenourea complexes of Cu(I), Ag(I), and Au(I) chlorides

Russian Chemical Bulletin -     

Density function theory study of CO adsorption on Fe3O4(111) surface

Density functional theory calculations have been carried out for CO adsorption on the Fe(oct2)- and Fe(tet1)-terminated Fe(3)O(4)(111) surfaces, which are considered as active catalysts in water-gas shift reaction. It is found that the on-top configurations are most stable on these two surfaces. Some bridge configurations are also stable in which the new C-O bond formed between the surface O atom and the C atom of CO. The adsorption on the Fe(oct2)-terminated surface is more stable than on the Fe(tet1)-terminated surface. The density of state reveals the binding mechanism of CO adsorption on the two surfaces. Our calculations have also shown that the absorbed CO can migrate from the on-top site to the bridge site or 3-fold site. The oxidation of CO via surface oxygen atoms is feasible, which is in good agreement with experimental results.     

Cluster and periodic DFT calculations: the adsorption of atomic nitrogen on M(111) (M = Cu, Ag, Au) surfaces

First-principle density functional calculations with cluster and slab models have been performed to investigate adsorption and thermally activated atomic nitrogen on M(111) (M = Cu, Ag, Au) surfaces. Optimized results indicate that the basis set of the N atom has a distinct effect on the adsorption energy but an indistinct one on the equilibrium distance. For the N/M(111) adsorption systems studied here, the threefold face centered cubic (fcc) hollow site is found to be the most stable adsorption site. The reason for the fcc site is that the perfected adsorption site has been explained by the density of states (DOS) analysis, that is, that N(2p) has the smallest DOS population near the Fermi level on the fcc site as compared with other adsorption sites. The variations of the adsorption energy as a function of adsorption site are similar and in the following order of N-M(111) binding strengths on a given site: Cu(111) > Ag(111) > Au(111). It is found that the N atom forms essentially an ionic bond for the most stable site. Large contributions between the M(ns) and N(2p) orbitals (n = 4, 5, and 6 for Cu, Ag, and Au, respectively) are found for the cluster model at the B3LYP/LANL2DZ-6-31G(d,p) level and also found in the slab DFT-GGA calculation results, which are the main characteristics of M-N bonds. At last, the dissociation of N2 on Cu(111) and Au(111) has also been obtained in this work, and the results showed that the dissociation of N2 on Cu(111) is more active than that on the Au(111) surface.     

A density functional study of C1-C4 alkyl adsorption on Cu(111)

To better understand the nature of alkyl intermediates often invoked in reactions involving hydrocarbon reactants and products, the adsorption of linear and branched C(1)-C(4) alkyls on Cu(111) at 1/4 ML and 1/9 ML coverages was studied using density functional theory. The adsorption energy and site preference are found to be coverage-dependent, and both direct alkyl-alkyl interactions and changes in the Cu electronic structure play a role in these trends. It was found that methyl strongly prefers the hollow sites, the branched alkyls strongly prefer the top site, and the linear C(2)-C(4) alkyls have weak site preferences that change with coverage. To explain these differences, rationalize alkyl adsorption trends, and predict the binding energy of other alkyls, a simple model was developed in which the binding energy is fit as a linear function of the number of C-Cu and C-H-Cu interactions as well as the C-H bond energy in the corresponding alkane. Site preference can be understood as a compromise between C-Cu interactions and C-H-Cu interactions. Density of states analysis was used to gain a molecular-orbital understanding of the bonding of alkyls to Cu(111).     

Electron-induced isomerisation of dichlorobenzene on Cu(111) and Ag(111)

The constitutional isomerisation of single dichlorobenzene molecules adsorbed on the surfaces of Ag(111) and Cu(111) between their meta- and para-isomers is induced and investigated by means of a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope. On both substrates similar isomerisation thresholds are found indicating that the excitation mechanism of this reaction does not depend significantly on the underlying substrate. The isomerisation threshold voltage of (170 +/- 7) meV most likely corresponds to excitation of a C-C stretch mode whose gas-phase energies we calculated ab initio to lie at 174 and 172 meV for meta- and para-isomers respectively. Though the reaction is found to be localized on the submolecular scale, it depends heavily on the second substituent both in terms of excitation energy and reaction outcome.