Edge reactivity and water-assisted dissociation on cobalt oxide nanoislands.

Transition metal oxides show great promise as Earth-abundant catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction in electrochemical water splitting. However, progress in the development of highly active oxide nanostructures is hampered by a lack of knowledge of the location and nature of the active sites. Here we show, through atom-resolved scanning tunnelling microscopy, X-ray spectroscopy and computational modelling, how hydroxyls form from water dissociation at under coordinated cobalt edge sites of cobalt oxide nanoislands. Surprisingly, we find that an additional water molecule acts to promote all the elementary steps of the dissociation process and subsequent hydrogen migration, revealing the important assisting role of a water molecule in its own dissociation process on a metal oxide. Inspired by the experimental findings, we theoretically model the oxygen evolution reaction activity of cobalt oxide nanoislands and show that the nanoparticle metal edges also display favourable adsorption energetics for water oxidation under electrochemical conditions.

On the behavior of Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi relations for transition metal oxides.

Versatile Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi (BEP) relations are found from density functional theory for a wide range of transition metal oxides including rutiles and perovskites. For oxides, the relation depends on the type of oxide, the active site, and the dissociating molecule. The slope of the BEP relation is strongly coupled to the adsorbate geometry in the transition state. If it is final state-like the dissociative chemisorption energy can be considered as a descriptor for the dissociation. If it is initial state-like, on the other hand, the dissociative chemisorption energy is not suitable as descriptor for the dissociation. Dissociation of molecules with strong intramolecular bonds belong to the former and molecules with weak intramolecular bonds to the latter group. We show, for the prototype system La-perovskites, that there is a "cyclic" behavior in the transition state characteristics upon change of the active transition metal of the oxide.

Atomic and molecular adsorption on transition-metal carbide (111) surfaces from density-functional theory: a trend study of surface electronic factors.

This study explores atomic and molecular adsorption on a number of early transition-metal carbides (TMCs) in NaCl structure by means of density-functional theory calculations. The investigated substrates are the TM-terminated TMC(111) surfaces, of interest because of the presence of different types of surface resonances (SRs) on them and because of their technological importance in growth processes. Also, TM compounds have shown potential in catalysis applications. Trend studies are conducted with respect to both period and group in the periodic table, choosing the substrates ScC, TiC, VC, ZrC, NbC, δ-MoC, TaC, and WC (in NaCl structure) and the adsorbates H, B, C, N, O, F, NH, NH(2), and NH(3). Trends in adsorption strength are explained in terms of surface electronic factors, by correlating the calculated adsorption-energy values with the calculated surface electronic structures. The results are rationalized by use of a concerted-coupling model (CCM), which has previously been applied successfully to the description of adsorption on TiC(111) and TiN(111) surfaces (Ruberto et al 2007 Solid State Commun. 141 48). First, the clean TMC(111) surfaces are characterized by calculating surface energies, surface relaxations, Bader charges, and surface-localized densities of states (DOSs). Detailed comparisons between surface and bulk DOSs reveal the existence of transition-metal localized SRs (TMSRs) in the pseudogap and of several C-localized SRs (CSRs) in the upper valence band on all considered TMC(111) surfaces. The spatial extent and the dangling bond nature of these SRs are supported by real-space analyses of the calculated Kohn-Sham wavefunctions. Then, atomic and molecular adsorption energies, geometries, and charge transfers are presented. An analysis of the adsorbate-induced changes in surface DOSs reveals a presence of both adsorbate-TMSR and adsorbate-CSRs interactions, of varying strengths depending on the surface and the adsorbate. These variations are correlated to the variations in adsorption energies. The results are used to generalize the content and applications of the previously proposed CCM to this larger class of substrates and adsorbates. Implications for other classes of materials, for catalysis, and for other surface processes are discussed.

From electronic structure to catalytic activity: a single descriptor for adsorption and reactivity on transition-metal carbides.

Adsorption and catalytic properties of the polar (111) surface of transition-metal carbides (TMC's) are investigated by density-functional theory. Atomic and molecular adsorption are rationalized with the concerted-coupling model, in which two types of TMC surface resonances (SR's) play key roles. The transition-metal derived SR is found to be a single measurable descriptor for the adsorption processes, implying that the Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi relation and scaling relations apply. This gives a picture with implications for ligand and vacancy effects and which has a potential for a broad screening procedure for heterogeneous catalysts.