Dissociative chemisorption and energy transfer for methane on Ir(111)

Cation doping size effect for methane activation on alkaline earth metal doping of the CeO2 (111) surface

Alkaline earth metal doping of CeO₂ improves the dissociative adsorption of methane with the behaviour showing a correlation to dopant ionic radius.

Microcanonical Transition State Theory for Activated Gas−Surface Reaction Dynamics: Application to H2/Cu(111) with Rotation as a Spectator

A microcanonical unimolecular rate theory (MURT) model incorporating quantized surface vibrations and Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus rate constants is applied to a benchmark system for gas-surface reaction dynamics, the activated dissociative chemisorption and associative desorption of hydrogen on Cu(111). Both molecular translation parallel to the surface and rotation are treated as spectator degrees of freedom. MURT analysis of diverse experiments indicates that one surface oscillator participates in the dissociative transition state and that the threshold energy for H2 dissociation on Cu(111) is E0 = 62 kJ/mol. The spectator approximation for rotation holds well at thermally accessible rotational energies (i.e., for Er less than approximately 40 kJ/mol). Over the temperature range from 300 to 1000 K, the calculated thermal dissociative sticking coefficient is ST = S0 exp(-Ea/kBT) where S0 = 1.57 and Ea = 62.9 kJ/mol. The sigmoid shape of rovibrational eigenstate-resolved dissociative sticking coefficients as a function of normal translational energy is shown to derive from an averaging of the microcanonical sticking coefficient, with threshold energy E0, over the thermal surface oscillator distribution of the gas-surface collision complexes. Given that H2/Cu(111) is one of the most dynamically biased of gas-surface reactive systems, the simple statistical MURT model simulates and broadly rationalizes the H2/Cu(111) reactive behavior with remarkable fidelity.

Seven-dimensional microcanonical treatment of hydrogen dissociation dynamics on Cu(111): Clarifying the essential role of surface phonons

A simple picture of the hydrogen dissociation/associative desorption dynamics on Cu(111) emerges from a two-parameter, full dimensionality microcanonical unimolecular rate theory (MURT) model of the gas-surface reactivity. Vibrational frequencies for the reactive transition state were taken from density functional theory calculations of a six-dimensional potential energy surface [Hammer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 1400 (1994)]. The two remaining parameters required by the MURT were fixed by simulation of experiments. These parameters are the dissociation threshold energy, E(0)=79 kJmol, and the number of surface oscillators involved in the localized H(2)Cu(111) collision complex, s=1. The two-parameter MURT quantitatively predicts much of the varied behavior observed for the H(2) and D(2)Cu(111) reactive systems, including the temperature-dependent associative desorption angular distributions, mean translational energies of the associatively desorbing hydrogen as a function of rovibrational eigenstate, etc. The divergence of the statistical theory's predictions from experimental results at low rotational quantum numbers, J < or approximately 5, suggests that either (i) rotational steering is important to the dissociation dynamics at low J, an effect that washes out at high J, or (ii) molecular rotation is approximately a spectator degree of freedom to the dissociation dynamics for these low J states, the states that dominate the thermal reactivity. Surface vibrations are predicted to provide approximately 30% of the energy required to surmount the activation barrier to H(2) dissociation under thermal equilibrium conditions. The MURT with s=1 is used to analytically confirm the experimental finding that partial differential "E(a)(T(s))" partial differential E(t)= -1 for eigenstate-resolved dissociative sticking at translational energies E(t)<E(0)-E(v)-E(r). Explicit treatment of the surface motion (i.e., surface not frozen at T(s)=0 K) is a relatively novel aspect of the MURT theoretical approach.

Using Effusive Molecular Beams and Microcanonical Unimolecular Rate Theory to Characterize CH4 Dissociation on Pt(111)

The dissociative sticking coefficient for CH4 on Pt(111) has been measured as a function of both gas temperature (Tg) and surface temperature (Ts) using effusive molecular beam and angle-integrated ambient gas dosing methods. The experimental results are used to optimize the three parameters of a microcanonical unimolecular rate theory (MURT) model of the reactive system. The MURT calculations allow us to extract transition state properties from the data as well as to compare our data directly to other molecular beam and thermal equilibrium sticking measurements. We find a threshold energy for dissociation of E0 = 52.5 +/- 3.5 kJ mol(-1). Furthermore, the MURT with an optimized parameter set provides for a predictive understanding of the kinetics of this C-H bond activation reaction, that is, it allows us to predict the dissociative sticking coefficient of CH4 on Pt(111) for any combination of Ts and Tg even if the two are not equal to one another, indeed, the distribution of molecular energy need not even be thermal. Comparison of our results to those from recent thermal equilibrium catalysis studies on CH4 reforming over Pt nanoclusters ( approximately 2 nm diam) dispersed on oxide substrates indicates that the reactivity of Pt(111) exceeds that of the Pt nanocatalysts by several orders of magnitude.

Effusive Molecular Beam Study of C2H6 Dissociation on Pt(111)

The dissociative sticking coefficient for C2H6 on Pt(111) has been measured as a function of both gas temperature (Tg) and surface temperature (Ts) using effusive molecular beam and angle-integrated ambient gas dosing methods. A microcanonical unimolecular rate theory (MURT) model of the reactive system is used to extract transition state properties from the data as well as to compare our data directly with supersonic molecular beam and thermal equilibrium sticking measurements. We report for the first time the threshold energy for dissociation, E0 = 26.5 +/- 3 kJ mol(-1). This value is only weakly dependent on the other two parameters of the model. A strong surface temperature dependence in the initial sticking coefficient is observed; however, the relatively weak dependence on gas temperature indicates some combination of the following (i) not all molecular excitations are contributing equally to the enhancement of sticking, (ii) that strong entropic effects in the dissociative transition state are leading to unusually high vibrational frequencies in the transition state, and (iii) energy transfer from gas-phase rovibrational modes to the surface is surprisingly efficient. In other words, it appears that vibrational mode-specific behavior and/or molecular rotations may play stronger roles in the dissociative adsorption of C2H6 than they do for CH4. The MURT with an optimized parameter set provides for a predictive understanding of the kinetics of this C-H bond activation reaction, that is, it allows us to predict the dissociative sticking coefficient of C2H6 on Pt(111) for any combination of Ts and Tg even if the two are not equal to one another.

Microcanonical unimolecular rate theory at surfaces. III. Thermal dissociative chemisorption of methane on Pt(111) and detailed balance

A local hot spot model of gas-surface reactivity is used to investigate the state-resolved dynamics of methane dissociative chemisorption on Pt(111) under thermal equilibrium conditions. Three Pt surface oscillators, and the molecular vibrations, rotations, and the translational energy directed along the surface normal are treated as active degrees of freedom in the 16-dimensional microcanonical kinetics. Several energy transfer models for coupling a local hot spot to the surrounding substrate are developed and evaluated within the context of a master equation kinetics approach. Bounds on the thermal dissociative sticking coefficient based on limiting energy transfer models are derived. The three-parameter physisorbed complex microcanonical unimolecular rate theory (PC-MURT) is shown to closely approximate the thermal sticking under any realistic energy transfer model. Assuming an apparent threshold energy for CH(4) dissociative chemisorption of E(0)=0.61 eV on clean Pt(111), the PC-MURT is used to predict angle-resolved yield, translational, vibrational, and rotational distributions for the reactive methane flux at thermal equilibrium at 500 K. By detailed balance, these same distributions should be observed for the methane product from methyl radical hydrogenation at 500 K in the zero coverage limit if the methyl radicals are not subject to side reactions. Given that methyl radical hydrogenation can only be experimentally observed when the CH(3) radicals are kinetically stabilized against decomposition by coadsorbed H, the PC-MURT was used to evaluate E(0) in the high coverage limit. A high coverage value of E(0)=2.3 eV adequately reproduced the experimentally observed methane angular and translational energy distributions from thermal hydrogenation of methyl radicals. Although rigorous application of detailed balance arguments to this reactive system cannot be made because thermal decomposition of the methyl radicals competes with hydrogenation, approximate applicability of detailed balance would argue for a strong coverage dependence of E(0) with H coverage--a dependence not seen for methyl radical hydrogenation on Ru(0001), but not yet experimentally explored on Pt(111).