Anderson S. Chaves

Ethanol and Water Adsorption on Transition-Metal 13-Atom Clusters: A Density Functional Theory Investigation within van der Waals Corrections

Transition-metal (TM) nanoparticles supported on oxides or carbon black have attracted much attention as potential catalysts for ethanol steam reforming reactions for hydrogen production. To improve the performance of nanocatalysts, a fundamental understanding of the interaction mechanism between water and ethanol with finite TM particles is required. In this article, we employed first-principles density functional theory with van der Waals (vdW) corrections to investigate the interaction of ethanol and water with TM13 clusters, where TM = Ni, Cu, Pd, Ag, Pt, and Au. We found that both water and ethanol bind via the anionic O atom to onefold TM sites, while at higher-energy structures, ethanol binds also via the H atom from the CH2 group to the TM sites, which can play an important role at real catalysts. The putative global minimum TM13 configurations are only slightly affected upon the adsorption of water or ethanol; however, for few systems, the compact higher-energy icosahedron structure changes its configuration upon ethanol or water adsorption. That is, those configurations are only shallow local minimums in the phase space. Except few deviations, we found similar trends for the magnitude of the adsorption energies of water and ethanol, that is, Ni13 > Pt13 > Pd13 and Cu13 > Au13 > Ag13, which is enhanced by the addition of the vdW correction (i.e., from 4% to 62%); however, the trend is the same. We found that the magnitude of the adsorption energy increases by shifting the center of gravity of the d-states toward the highest occupied molecular orbital. On the basis of the Mulliken and Hirshfeld charge analysis, as well as electron density differences, we identified the location of the charge redistribution and a tiny charge transfer (from 0.01 e to 0.19 e) from the molecules to the TM13 clusters. Our vibrational analysis indicates the red shifts in the OH modes upon binding of both water and ethanol molecules to the TM13 clusters, suggesting a weakening of the O-H bonding.

Theoretical Investigation of the Adsorption Properties of CO, NO, and OH on Monometallic and Bimetallic 13-Atom Clusters: The Example of Cu13, Pt7Cu6, and Pt13.

We report a density functional theory investigation of the adsorption properties of CO, NO, and OH on the Cu13, Pt7Cu6, and Pt13 clusters in the cationic, neutral, and anionic states with the aim to improve our atomistic understanding of the adsorption properties on bimetallic clusters compared with monometallic clusters. The adsorption energy of CO and NO are substantially stronger on Pt13 than on Cu13, and hence, CO and NO bind preferentially on Pt sites on Pt7Cu6. Thus, it can contribute to drive the migration of the Pt atoms from the core to the surface region in large PtCu nanoalloys. The CO and NO adsorption energies on the bimetallic cluster are enhanced by a few percent compared with the energies of the monometallic clusters, which shows that the Pt-Cu interaction can contribute to an increase in the adsorption energy. In contrast with CO and NO trends, the OH adsorption energies on Cu13, Pt7Cu6, and Pt13 deviates only up to 0.31 eV, and hence, there is no clear preference for Cu or Pt sites on Pt7Cu6 or an enhancement of the adsorption energy on the bimetallic systems. We found a reduction of the CO and NO vibrational frequencies upon adsorption, which indicates a weakening of the CO and NO binding energies, and it is supported by a slight increase in the bond lengths. However, the OH vibrational frequency increases upon adsorption, which indicates an enhancement of the OH binding energy, which is supported by a slight decrease in the bond length by about 0.01 Å. It can be explained by the large charge transfer from the clusters to the O atom, which enhances the electrostatic interaction in the O-H bonding.

A theoretical investigation of the structural and electronic properties of 55-atom nanoclusters: The examples of Y–Tc and Pt

Several studies have found that the Pt55 nanocluster adopts a distorted reduced core structure, DRC55, in which there are 8-11 atoms in the core and 47-44 atoms in the surface, instead of the compact and high-symmetry icosahedron structure, ICO55, with 13 and 42 atoms in the core and surface, respectively. The DRC structure has also been obtained as the putative global minimum configuration (GMC) for the Zn55 (3d), Cd55 (4d), and Au55 (5d) systems. Thus, the DRC55 structure has been reported only for systems with a large occupation of the d-states, where the effects of the occupation of the valence anti-bonding d-states might play an important role. Can we observe the DRC structure for 55-atom transition-metal systems with non-occupation of the anti-bonding d-states? To address this question, we performed a theoretical investigation of the Y 55, Zr55, Nb55, Mo55, Tc55, and Pt55 nanoclusters, employing density functional theory calculations. For the putative GMCs, we found that the Y 55 adopts the ICO55 structure, while Nb55 and Mo55 adopt a bulk-like fragment based on the hexagonal close-packed structure and Tc55 adopts a face-centered cubic fragment; however, Zr55 adopts a DRC55 structure, like Zn55, Cd55, Pt55, and Au55. Thus we can conclude that the preference for DRC55 structure is not related to the occupation of the anti-bonding d-states, but to a different effect, in fact, a combination of structural and electronic effects. Furthermore, we obtained that the binding energy per atom follows the occupation of the bonding and anti-bonding model, i.e., the stability of the studied systems increases from Y to Tc with a small oscillation for Mo, which also explains the equilibrium bond lengths. We obtained a larger magnetic moment for Y 55 (31 μB) which can be explained by the localization of the d-states in Y at nanoscale, which is not observed for the remaining systems (0-1 μB).

Ultralow and anisotropic thermal conductivity in semiconductor As2Se3

An ultralow lattice thermal conductivity of 0.14 W m-1 K-1 along the b[combining right harpoon above] axis of As2Se3 single crystals was obtained at 300 K using first-principles calculations involving density functional theory and the resolution of the Boltzmann transport equation. This ultralow lattice thermal conductivity arises from the combination of two mechanisms: (1) a cascade-like fall of the low-lying optical modes, which results in avoided crossings of these with the acoustic modes, low sound velocities and increased scattering rates of the acoustic phonons; and (2) the repulsion between the lone-pair electrons of the As cations and the valence p orbitals of the Se anions, which leads to an increase in the anharmonicity of the bonds. The physical origins of these mechanisms lie in the nature of the chemical bonding in the material and its strong anisotropy. These results, whose validity has been addressed by comparison with SnSe, for which excellent agreement between the theoretical predictions and the experiments is achieved, point out that As2Se3 could exhibit improved thermoelectric properties.