John R. Kitchin

Trends in the Exchange Current for Hydrogen Evolution

Department of Physics, Technical University Munich, D-85748 Garching, GermanyA density functional theory database of hydrogen chemisorption energies on close packed surfaces of a number of transition andnoble metals is presented. The bond energies are used to understand the trends in the exchange current for hydrogen evolution. Avolcano curve is obtained when measured exchange currents are plotted as a function of the calculated hydrogen adsorptionenergies and a simple kinetic model is developed to understand the origin of the volcano. The volcano curve is also consistent withPt being the most efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution.© 2005 The Electrochemical Society. @DOI: 10.1149/1.1856988# All rights reserved.Manuscript submitted May 10, 2004; revised manuscript received August 12, 2004. Available electronically January 24, 2005.

Universality in Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis on Oxide Surfaces

Trends in electrocatalytic activity of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are investigated on the basis of a large database of HO* and HOO* adsorption energies on oxide surfaces. The theoretical overpotential was calculated by applying standard density functional theory in combination with the computational standard hydrogen electrode (SHE) model. We showed that by the discovery of a universal scaling relation between the adsorption energies of HOO* vs HO*, it is possible to analyze the reaction free energy diagrams of all the oxides in a general way. This gave rise to an activity volcano that was the same for a wide variety of oxide catalyst materials and a universal descriptor for the oxygen evolution activity, which suggests a fundamental limitation on the maximum oxygen evolution activity of planar oxide catalysts.

Modification of the surface electronic and chemical properties of Pt(111) by subsurface 3d transition metals

The modification of the electronic and chemical properties of Pt(111) surfaces by subsurface 3d transition metals was studied using density-functional theory. In each case investigated, the Pt surface d-band was broadened and lowered in energy by interactions with the subsurface 3d metals, resulting in weaker dissociative adsorption energies of hydrogen and oxygen on these surfaces. The magnitude of the decrease in adsorption energy was largest for the early 3d transition metals and smallest for the late 3d transition metals. In some cases, dissociative adsorption was calculated to be endothermic. The surfaces investigated in this study had no lateral strain in them, demonstrating that strain is not a necessary factor in the modification of bimetallic surface properties. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of catalyst design, particularly for fuel cell electrocatalysts.

Alloy surface segregation in reactive environments : First-principles atomistic thermodynamics study of Ag3Pd(111) in oxygen atmospheres

We present a first-principles atomistic thermodynamics framework to describe the structure, composition and segregation profile of an alloy surface in contact with a (reactive) environment. The method is illustrated with the application to a Ag3Pd(111) surface in an oxygen atmosphere, and we analyze trends in segregation, adsorption and surface free energies. We observe a wide range of oxygen adsorption energies on the various alloy surface configurations, including binding that is stronger than on a Pd(111) surface and weaker than that on a Ag(111) surface. This and the consideration of even small amounts of non-stoichiometries in the ordered bulk alloy are found to be crucial to accurately model the Pd surface segregation occurring in increasingly O-rich gas phases.

Configurational correlations in the coverage dependent adsorption energies of oxygen atoms on late transition metal fcc(111) surfaces

The coverage dependence of oxygen adsorption energies on the fcc(111) surfaces of seven different transition metals (Rh, Ir, Pd, Pt, Cu, Au, and Ag) is demonstrated through density functional theory calculations on 20 configurations ranging from one to five adsorption sites and coverages up to 1 ML. Atom projected densities of states are used to demonstrate that the d-band mediated adsorption mechanism is responsible for the coverage dependence of the adsorption energies. This common bonding mechanism results in a linear correlation that relates the adsorption energies of each adsorbate configuration across different metal surfaces to each other. The slope of this correlation is shown to be related to the characteristics of the valence d-orbitals and band structure of the surface metal atoms. Additionally, it is shown that geometric similarity of the configurations is essential to observe the configurational correlations.

Effects of strain, d-band filling, and oxidation state on the surface electronic structure and reactivity of 3d perovskite surfaces.

Trends in the dissociative oxygen adsorption energy and oxygen vacancy formation energy on cubic LaBO(3) and SrBO(3) perovskite (001) surfaces (where B = Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu) and their dependence on strain, d-band filling, and oxidation state were examined using density functional theory in the generalized gradient approximation. The effects of strain were found to be small compared to the effects of d-band filling and oxidations state. Electronic structure descriptors such as the d-band center of the B-atom were identified for trends in the dissociative oxygen adsorption energy and for the oxygen vacancy formation energy. A chemical correlation between these two reaction energies was also identified showing the trends in these reaction energies are not independent of each other.

Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution with an Immobilized TAML Activator

Iron complexes of tetra-amido macrocyclic ligands are important members of the suite of oxidation catalysts known as TAML activators. TAML activators are known to be fast homogeneous water oxidation (WO) catalysts, producing oxygen in the presence of chemical oxidants, e.g., ceric ammonium nitrate. These homogeneous systems exhibited low turnover numbers (TONs). Here we demonstrate immobilization on glassy carbon and carbon paper in an ink composed of the prototype TAML activator, carbon black, and Nafion and the subsequent use of this composition in heterogeneous electrocatalytic WO. The immobilized TAML system is shown to readily produce O2 with much higher TONs than the homogeneous predecessors.

CO2 Adsorption on Supported Molecular Amidine Systems on Activated Carbon

The CO(2) capture capacities for typical flue gas capture and regeneration conditions of two tertiary amidine N-methyltetrahydropyrimidine (MTHP) derivatives supported on activated carbon were determined through temperature-controlled packed-bed reactor experiments. Adsorption-desorption experiments were conducted at initial adsorption temperatures ranging from 29 degrees C to 50 degrees C with temperature-programmed regeneration under an inert purge stream. In addition to the capture capacity of each amine, the efficiencies at which the amidines interact with CO(2) were determined. Capture capacities were obtained for 1,5-diazo-bicyclo[4.3.0]non-5-ene (DBN) and 1,8-diazobicyclo[5.4.0]-undec-7-ene (DBU) supported on activated carbon at a loading of approximately 2.7 mol amidine per kg of sorbent. Moisture was found to be essential for CO(2) capture on the amidines, but parasitic moisture sorption on the activated carbon ultimately limited the capture capacities. DBN was shown to have a higher capture capacity of 0.8 mol CO(2) per kg of sorbent and an efficiency of 0.30 mol CO(2) per mol of amidine at an adsorption temperature of 29 degrees C compared to DBU. The results of these experiments were then used in conjunction with a single-site adsorption model to derive the Gibbs free energy for the capture reaction, which can provide information about the suitability of the sorbent under different operating conditions.

New solid-state table: estimating d-band characteristics for transition metal atoms

A tight-binding model parameterised by a database of density functional theory calculations is presented and used to estimate the d-band characteristics of bulk systems as well as mono- and bimetallic surface structures. The model incorporates the effects of both electronic and geometric contributions. A d-band width formalism relating surface reactivity with the surface electronic structure is presented and it is shown that the proposed model can be used to estimate the surface electronic structure as well as to explain trends in catalytic properties of metal and alloy surfaces in terms of surface and adsorbate orbital properties.

Uncertainty and figure selection for DFT based cluster expansions for oxygen adsorption on Au and Pt (111) surfaces

We utilise two-dimensional cluster expansions in order to extend a small density functional theory (DFT) database of oxygen adsorption energies on Au and Pt (111) surfaces to explore a wide range of configurational space in larger unit cells than can be conveniently examined by DFT. We calculate adsorption energies and heats of formation for all configurations of up to 15 adsorption sites using the cluster expansions. We show how the cluster expansion adsorption energies obey the configurational correlation previously observed for the DFT results. The ramifications of figure selection are considered and the use of cross-validation scores to weigh figure sets and determine predictive power is examined. Finally, we show that there are only a small number of structural motifs needed to describe the most relevant structures in the phase diagram on these metals.