Energetics and vibrational states for hydrogen on Pt(111)

Unraveling the Origin of the Repulsive Interaction between Hydrogen Adsorbates on Platinum Single-Crystal Electrodes

Hydrogen adsorption on platinum (Pt) single-crystal electrodes has been studied intensively in both experiments and computations. Yet, the precise origin and nature of the repulsive interactions observed between hydrogen adsorbates (Hads) have remained elusive. Here, we use first-principles density functional theory calculations to investigate in detail the interactions between Hads on Pt(111), Pt(100), and Pt(110) surfaces. The repulsive interaction between Hads on Pt(111) is deconvoluted into three different physical contributions, namely, (i) electrostatic interactions, (ii) surface distortion effect, and (iii) surface coordination effect. The long-range electrostatic interaction, which is generally considered the most important source of repulsive interactions in surface adsorption, was found to contribute less than 30% of the overall repulsive interaction. The remaining >70% arises from the other two contributions, underscoring the critical influence of surface-mediated interactions on the adsorption process. Surface distortion and coordination effects are found to strongly depend on the coverage and adsorption geometry: the effect of surface distortion dominates when adsorbates reside two or more Pt atoms apart; the effect of surface coordination dominates if hydrogen is adsorbed on neighboring adsorption sites. The above effects are considerably less pronounced on Pt(100) and Pt(110), therefore resulting in weaker interactions between Hads on these two surfaces. Overall, the study highlights the relevance of surface-mediated effects on adsorbate-adsorbate interactions, such as the often-overlooked surface distortion. The effect of these interactions on the hotly debated adsorption site for the adsorbed hydrogen intermediate in the hydrogen evolution reaction is also discussed.

In situ identification of surface sites in Cu-Pt bimetallic catalysts: Gas-induced metal segregation

The effect of gases on the surface composition of Cu-Pt bimetallic catalysts has been tested by in situ infrared (IR) and x-ray absorption spectroscopies. Diffusion of Pt atoms within the Cu-Pt nanoparticles was observed both in vacuum and under gaseous atmospheres. Vacuum IR spectra of CO adsorbed on CuPt_x/SBA-15 catalysts (x = 0-∞) at 125 K showed no bonding on Pt regardless of Pt content, but reversible Pt segregation to the surface was seen with the high-Pt-content (x ≥ 0.2) samples upon heating to 225 K. In situ IR spectra in CO atmospheres also highlighted the reversible segregation of Pt to the surface and its diffusion back into the bulk when cycling the temperature from 295 to 495 K and back, most evidently for diluted single-atom alloy catalysts (x ≤ 0.01). Similar behavior was possibly observed under H₂ using small amounts of CO as a probe molecule. In situ x-ray absorption near-edge structure data obtained for CuPt_0.2/SBA-15 under both CO and He pointed to the metallic nature of the Pt atoms irrespective of gas or temperature, but analysis of the extended x-ray absorption fine structure identified a change in coordination environment around the Pt atoms, from a (Pt-Cu):(Pt-Pt) coordination number ratio of ∼6:6 at or below 445 K to 8:4 at 495 K. The main conclusion is that Cu-Pt bimetallic catalysts are dynamic, with the composition of their surfaces being dependent on temperature in gaseous environments.

Quantum effects in thermal reaction rates at metal surfaces

There is wide interest in developing accurate theories for predicting rates of chemical reactions that occur at metal surfaces, especially for applications in industrial catalysis. Conventional methods contain many approximations that lack experimental validation. In practice, there are few reactions where sufficiently accurate experimental data exist to even allow meaningful comparisons to theory. Here, we present experimentally derived thermal rate constants for hydrogen atom recombination on platinum single-crystal surfaces, which are accurate enough to test established theoretical approximations. A quantum rate model is also presented, making possible a direct evaluation of the accuracy of commonly used approximations to adsorbate entropy. We find that neglecting the wave nature of adsorbed hydrogen atoms and their electronic spin degeneracy leads to a 10× to 1000× overestimation of the rate constant for temperatures relevant to heterogeneous catalysis. These quantum effects are also found to be important for nanoparticle catalysts.

Adsorbed States of Hydrogen on Platinum: A New Perspective

The interaction of hydrogen with platinum is enormously important in many areas of catalysis. The most significant of these are in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), in which carbon‐supported platinum is used to dissociate hydrogen gas at the anode. The nature of adsorbed hydrogen on platinum has been studied for many years on single‐crystal surfaces, on high‐surface area‐platinum metal (Raney platinum and platinum black), and on supported catalysts. Many forms of vibrational spectroscopy have played a key role in these studies, however, there is still no clear consensus as to the assignment of the spectra. In this work, ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) and lattice dynamics were used to study a 1.1 nm nanoparticle, Pt₄₄H₈₀. The results were compared to new inelastic neutron scattering spectra of hydrogen on platinum black and of a carbon‐supported platinum fuel cell catalyst and an assignment scheme that rationalises all previous data is proposed.

Hydrogen adsorption on Pt(111) revisited from random phase approximation

Hydrogen adsorption on Pt(111) has been actively studied using semilocal approximations within the density functional theory featuring simultaneous adsorption of hydrogen on multiple sites, i.e., fcc, atop, and hcp. Considering the accuracy needed to detail the feature, we revisit this problem with the help of higher level of theory, the adiabatic connection fluctuation dissipation theorem within the random phase approximation. Our simulation emphasizes important roles played by the equilibrium lattice parameter of the surface, mass of the hydrogen isotope, and hydrogen coverage. The insight acquired in this study provides a way to consistently interpret electrochemical and spectroscopic data.

Density functional theory study of thermodynamic and kinetic isotope effects of H2/D2 dissociative adsorption on transition metals

Thermodynamic/kinetic isotope effects for H₂/D₂ dissociative adsorption calculated on metal surfaces offer a means to identify active sites.

Reactivity of diatomics and of ethylene on zeolite-supported 13-atom platinum nanoclusters

CO and NO react on hydrogen-covered 13-atom Pt clusters, O₂ does not, and the hydrogenation of ethene shows structure sensitivity.

Surface morphology of atomic nitrogen on Pt(111)

The surface morphology of chemisorbed N on the Pt(111) surface has been studied at the atomic level with low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). When N is coadsorbed with O on the surface, they form a mixed (2 × 2)-N+O structure. When the surface is covered with N atoms only, isolated atoms and incomplete (2 × 2) patches are observed at low coverages. In a dense N layer, two phases, (√3 × √3)R30°-N and p(2 × 2)-N, are found to coexist at temperatures between 360 and 400 K. The (√3 × √3)R30° phase converts to the (2 × 2) phase as temperature increases. For both phases, nitrogen occupies fcc-hollow sites. At temperatures above 420 K, nitrogen starts to desorb. The p(2 × 2)-N phase shows a honeycomb structure in STM images with three nitrogen and three platinum atoms forming a six-membered ring, which can be attributed to the strong nitrogen binding to the underlying Pt surface.

First-principles calculations of H, O and OH adsorption on metallic layered supported thin films

In this work, the adsorption of hydrogen, oxygen and hydroxyl on metallic thin films is studied through first-principles calculations. We explore how the structural and electronic properties of palladium, platinum and gold thin films change with respect to the type of substrate. As a major result we find that Pd/Au(111) and Pt/Au(111) thin films present enhanced adsorption properties for H, O and OH. This improvement is a result of the induced tensile strain on the film due to the misfit between the lattice parameters of the film and the substrate. For these systems, the tensile strain results in a shift of the d-band center position towards to the Fermi level, with implications for the enhancement of adsorption properties. Our results suggest that the location of the unadsorbed d-band center for Pd/Au(111), Pt/Au(111) and Au thin films is a good parameter to predict the reactivity between these surfaces and H, O and OH. However, when considering different numbers of atomic monolayers, changes in adsorption energy are observed and there is no correlation for Pd/Au(111) and Au/Pt(111) films. For Pd/Pt(111) and Pt/Pd(111) films the difference between lattice parameters is relatively small, and no correlation is found, since no considerable strain is induced. In addition, our results support that a compressive strain will always lead to weaker adsorption. We also observe that the work function is strongly affected by adsorption. In particular, H adsorption results in an expansion of the interlayer distance between the topmost layers of the film. Furthermore, after atomic insertion, the interlayer distance of Pd/Pt(111) films is similar to the interlayer distance for bulk PdH0.6, which indicates that these thin films can act as precursor states for hydride formation.

Determination of the quantum contribution to the activated motion of hydrogen on a metal surface: H/Pt(111)

Measurements of the atomic-scale motion of H and D atoms on the Pt(111) surface, above the crossover temperature to deep tunneling, are presented. The results indicate that quantum effects are significant up to the highest temperature studied (250 K). The motion is shown to correspond to nearest neighbor hopping diffusion on a well defined fcc (111) lattice. The measurements provide information on the adiabatic potential of both the adsorption site and the transition state and give strong empirical support for a dissipative transition-state theory description of the quantum contribution to the motion.

Theory of surface phonons at metal surfaces: recent advances

Recent studies of the surface dynamics of Al(001) and Cu(111) based on density functional perturbation theory have substantiated the existence of subsurface optical phonon resonances of all three polarizations, thus confirming early predictions of the embedded-atom method. The hybridization of the shear-vertical optical resonance with the longitudinal acoustic phonon branch accounts for the ubiquitous anomalous acoustic resonance as an intrinsic feature of metal surfaces. The DFPT calculation of the phonon-induced surface charge density oscillations shows that helium atom scattering spectroscopy (HAS) can indeed probe subsurface resonances. This opens new perspectives to HAS for the measurement of subsurface phonon dispersion curves in thin films, as proved by recent HAS studies on Pb and Fe ultrathin films on copper. After discussing these recent advances, this paper briefly reviews other important trends of surface dynamics expressed in recent years.

Quantum diffusion of H on Pt(111): step effects

Using a linear optical diffraction technique, we have systematically investigated the defect effects on quantum surface diffusion of hydrogen on Pt(111) surfaces. The quantum tunneling effect was clearly observed for hydrogen diffusion at low temperatures as manifested by a leveling off of the diffusion coefficient on flat surfaces. The strong influence of surface defects on the quantum diffusion is in good agreement with the creation of an inhomogeneous surface with adsorption sites of different binding energies.

Water Formation on Pt and Pt-based Alloys: A Theoretical Description of a Catalytic Reaction

In the past, the modeling of catalytic processes was limited by the size and complexity of the systems involved. However, the enormous progress in both computer power and theoretical methods has made computational modeling a valuable tool in increasing our knowledge of catalytic reactions on the atomic scale. While complex reactions can be studied by dividing the overall reaction into a series of steps calculable by quantum mechanics, the combination with methods appropriate for larger time and length scales enables the gap between these regimes to be bridged. This provides a more realistic modeling of the experimental system and allows important environmental effects such as solvation to be taken into account. In this Minireview we describe some of the main theoretical methodologies that are used to study catalytic properties and reactions on surfaces. Using these methods, we study the seemingly simple reaction of water formation out of hydrogen and oxygen on Pt and Pt/Ni alloy catalysts. To provide a more realistic description we also discuss the interesting effects determined by hydrating the system or using alloy nanoparticles rather than extended surfaces.

A Small Paramagnetic Platinum Cluster in an NaY Zeolite: Characterization and Hydrogen Adsorption and Desorption

A well-defined cluster containing 12 equivalent platinum atoms was prepared by ion exchange of an NaY zeolite, followed by hydrogen reduction. It was characterized by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, hyperfine sublevel correlation (HYSCORE), and theoretical calculations. Combing the results of the experiments with density functional calculations, the likely structure of this cluster is icosahedral Pt13Hm, possibly with a low positive charge. The adsorbed H/D on the Pt cluster surface can be exchanged reversibly at room temperature. From H/D desorption experiments, an H2 binding energy of 1.36 eV is derived, in reasonable agreement with the calculated value but clearly larger than that for a (111) Pt single-crystal surface, revealing a finite size effect. While the hydrogen-covered cluster should clearly be regarded as a molecule, it is conceivable that the cluster adopts metallic character upon hydrogen desorption. It is likely that up to m=30 H atoms bind to this cluster with 12 surface atoms, which has important implications for the determination of the dispersion of small Pt catalyst particles by hydrogen chemisorption. Calculations as well as experiments give evidence of an interesting magnetic behavior with high-spin states playing a prominent role. There are strong indications that a reservoir of EPR silent but structurally similar clusters exists which can partly be converted to EPR visible species by H/D exchange or by gas adsorption.

Identification and Hydrogenation of C2 on Pt(111)

Reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS) and temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) were used to identify the molecular species formed upon the reaction of hydrogen with surface carbon that is deposited by exposing acetylene to a Pt(111) surface held at 750 K. At this temperature, the acetylene is completely dehydrogenated and all hydrogen is desorbed from the surface. Upon subsequent hydrogen exposure at 85 K followed by sequential annealing to higher temperatures, ethylidyne (CCH3), ethynyl (CCH), and methylidyne (CH) are formed. The observation of these species indicates that carbon atoms and C2 molecules exist as stable species on the surface over a wide range of temperatures. Through a combination of RAIRS intensities, hydrogen TPD peak areas, and Auger electron spectroscopy, quantitative estimates of the coverages of the various species were obtained. It was found that 79% of the acetylene-derived carbon was in the form of C2 molecules, with the remainder in the form of carbon atoms. Essentially all of the acetylene-derived carbon could be hydrogenated. In contrast, 85% of an equivalent coverage of carbon deposited by ethylene exposure at 750 K was found to be inert toward hydrogenation.

Water formation reaction on Pt(111): Role of the proton transfer

The catalytic water formation reaction on Pt(111) was investigated by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, where the interaction energy between reaction species and the high mobility of H(2)O molecule was considered. Results obtained clearly reproduce the scanning tunneling microscopy images which show that the reaction proceeds via traveling the reaction fronts on the O-covered Pt(111) surface by creating H(2)O islands backwards. The reaction front is a mixed layer of OH and H(2)O with a (square root 3 x square root 3)R30(o) structure. Coverage change during the reaction is also reproduced in which the reaction consists of three characteristic processes, as observed by the previous experiments. The simulation also revealed that the proton transfer from H(2)O to OH plays an important role to propagate the water formation.

Surface and Subsurface Hydrogen: Adsorption Properties on Transition Metals and Near-Surface Alloys

Periodic, self-consistent DFT-GGA calculations are used to study the thermochemical properties of both surface and subsurface atomic hydrogen on a variety of pure metals and near-surface alloys (NSAs). For surface hydrogen on pure metals, calculated site preferences, adsorption geometries, vibrational frequencies, and binding energies are reported and are found to be in good agreement with available experimental data. On NSAs, defined as alloys wherein a solute is present near the surface of a host metal in a composition different from the bulk composition, surface hydrogen generally binds more weakly than it binds to the pure-metal components composing the alloys. Some of the NSAs even possess the unusual property of binding hydrogen as weakly as the noble metals while, at the same time, dissociating H(2) much more easily. On both NSAs and pure metals, formation of surface hydrogen is generally exothermic with respect to H(2)(g). In contrast, formation of subsurface hydrogen is typically endothermic with respect to gas-phase H(2) (the only exception to this general statement is found for pure Pd). As with surface H, subsurface H typically binds more weakly to NSAs than to the corresponding pure-metal components of the alloys. The diffusion barrier for hydrogen from surface to subsurface sites, however, is usually lower on NSAs compared to the pure-metal components, suggesting that population of subsurface sites may occur more rapidly on NSAs.

Adsorption and diffusion on a stepped surface: Atomic hydrogen on Pt(211)

We present density functional theory calculations for atomic hydrogen interacting with a stepped surface, the Pt(211) surface. The calculations have been performed at the generalized gradient approximation level, using a slab representation of the surface. This is the state-of-the-art method for calculating the interaction of atoms or molecules with metal surfaces, nevertheless only few studies have used it to study atoms or molecules interacting with stepped surfaces, and none, to the best of our knowledge, have considered hydrogen interacting with stepped platinum surfaces. Our goal has been to initiate a systematic study of this topic. We have calculated the full three-dimensional potential energy surface (PES) for the H/Pt(211) system together with the vibrational band structure and vibrational eigenfunctions of H. A deep global minimum of the PES is found for bridge-bonded hydrogen on the step edge, in agreement with experimental results for the similar H/Pt(533) system. All the local vibrational excitations at the global minimum have been identified, and this will serve as a helpful guide to the interpretation of future experiments on this (or similar) system(s). Furthermore, from the calculated PES and vibrational band structure, we identify a number of consequences for the interpretation or modelling of diffusion experiments studying the coverage and directional dependence of atomic hydrogen diffusion on stepped platinum surfaces.

Activation energies for quantum diffusion of hydrogen in metals and on metal surfaces using delocalized nuclei within the density-functional theory

Hydrogen diffusion on the Cu(001) surface and in bulk Nb and Ta is studied in the quantum regime using first-principles electronic-structure calculations. We present, for the first time, a direct density-functional calculation of the activation energy required to establish the quantum-mechanically delocalized hydrogen coincidence configuration and of the corresponding tunneling matrix element. For the two bulk systems a direct comparison can be made with nuclear magnetic resonance data, and we find excellent agreement for both the coincidence energy and the tunneling matrix element.

Infrared spectroscopy of oxygen adsorbed on hydrogen covered Pt(111)

Using infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy we have investigated how preadsorbed hydrogen affects the adsorption of O(2) on the Pt(111) surface at temperatures below the onset of the water formation reaction. On the fully hydrogen covered surface, Theta(H)=1, O(2) physisorbs at temperatures below 45 K, the weakly dipole active internal stretch vibration is observed at 1548 cm(-1). Unlike on the clean Pt(111) surface, this adsorption state does not act as a precursor for O(2) chemisorption. The physisorbed molecules simply desorb above 45 K and no chemisorbed O(2) state is populated directly from the gas phase in the temperature range 45-90 K. When the surface is approximately half covered, Theta(H) approximately 0.4, with preadsorbed hydrogen, O(2) chemisorbs on the clean Pt(111) surface regions in the characteristic peroxolike and superoxolike states with vibration frequencies around 700 cm(-1) and 870 cm(-1). These values correspond to dense O(2) islands which develop already at low O(2) coverages. At this hydrogen coverage, we find that the initial sticking probability of chemisorbed O(2) is drastically reduced at 90 K and the general uptake also proceeds slowly when compared with observations for the clean surface. We suggest that this is due to a change in the behavior of the physisorbed O(2) precursor.