Sebastian Zuluaga

Factors controlling the energetics of the oxygen reduction reaction on the Pd-Co electro-catalysts: insight from first principles.

We report here results of our density functional theory based computational studies of the electronic structure of the Pd-Co alloy electrocatalysts and energetics of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on their surfaces. The calculations have been performed for the (111) surfaces of pure Pd, Pd(0.75)Co(0.25) and Pd(0.5)Co(0.5) alloys, as well as of the surface segregated Pd/Pd(0.75)Co(0.25) alloy. We find the hybridization of dPd and dCo electronic states to be the main factor controlling the electrocatalytic properties of Pd/Pd(0.75)Co(0.25). Namely the dPd-dCo hybridization causes low energy shift of the surface Pd d-band with respect to that for Pd(111). This shift weakens chemical bonds between the ORR intermediates and the Pd/Pd(0.75)Co(0.25) surface, which is favorable for the reaction. Non-segregated Pd(0.75)Co(0.25) and Pd(0.5)Co(0.5) surfaces are found to be too reactive for ORR due to bonding of the intermediates to the surface Co atoms. Analysis of the ORR free energy diagrams, built for the Pd and Pd/Pd(0.75)Co(0.25), shows that the co-adsorption of the ORR intermediates and water changes the ORR energetics significantly and makes ORR more favorable. We find the onset ORR potential estimated for the configurations with the O-OH and OH-OH co-adsorption to be in very good agreement with experiment. The relevance of this finding to the real reaction environment is discussed.

Factors Controlling the Reactivity of Catalytically Active Monolayers on Metal Substrates

The focus of this work is on the Pt/MS structures (MS = Au, Ir, Ru, or Pt substrate), as promising electrocatalysts and a prototype for more general systems: (active element monolayer)/(metal substrate) (AE/MS). We evaluate from first principles the effects of AE monolayer strain and the interlayer AE-MS electronic state hybridization on surface reactivity and reveal rationale for the interlayer hybridization to dominate over the strain effect in determining the AE/MS surface reactivity. We find, however, that, if AE is weakly bound to MS, the surface electronic structure does not suffice to characterize the surface reactivity, because of involvement of other factors related to lattice response to adsorption of a reaction intermediate. Guided by our findings, we trace surface reactivity to a newly introduced hybridization parameter that reflects important features of the electronic structure of the AE/MS surface, which are not taken into account in the original d-band center model.

Design of Optimally Stable Molecular Coatings for Fe-Based Nanoparticles in Aqueous Environments

Magnetic nanoparticles are widely used in biomedical and oil-well applications in aqueous, often harsh environments. The pursuit for high-saturation magnetization together with high stability of the molecular coating that prevents agglomeration and oxidation remains an active research area. Here, we report a detailed analysis of the criteria for the stability of molecular coatings in aqueous environments along with extensive first-principles calculations for magnetite, which has been widely used, and cementite, a promising emerging candidate. A key result is that the simple binding energies of molecules cannot be used as a definitive indicator of relative stability in a liquid environment. Instead, we find that H+ ions and water molecules facilitate the desorption of molecules from the surface. We further find that, because of differences in the geometry of crystal structures, molecules generally form stronger bonds on cementite surfaces than they do on magnetite surfaces. The net result is that molecular coatings of cementite nanoparticles are more stable. This feature, together with the better magnetic properties, makes cementite nanoparticles a promising candidate for biomedical and oil-well applications.

First principles study of oxygen adsorption on Se-modified Ru nanoparticles

We present here the results of our density-functional-theory-based calculations of the electronic and geometric structures and energetics of Se and O adsorption on Ru 93- and 105-atom nanoparticles. These studies have been inspired by the fact that Se/Ru nanoparticles are considered promising electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on the direct methanol fuel cell cathodes and the oxygen binding energy is a descriptor for the catalyst activity towards this reaction. We find the character of chemical bonding of Se on a flat nanoparticle facet to be ionic, similar to that obtained earlier for the Se/Ru(0001) surface, while in the case of a low coordinated Ru configuration there is an indication of some covalent contribution to the bonding leading to an increase in Se binding energy. Se and O co-adsorbed on the flat facet, both accept electronic charge from Ru, whereas the adsorption on low-coordinated sites causes more complicated valence charge redistribution. The Se modification of the Ru particles leads to weakening of the oxygen bonding to the particle. However, overall, O binding energies are found to be higher for the particles than for Se/Ru(0001). High reactivity of the Se/Ru nanoparticles found in this work is not favorable for ORR. We thus expect that larger particles with well-developed flat facets are more efficient ORR catalysts than small nanoparticles with a large fraction of under-coordinated adsorption sites.We present here the results of our density-functional-theory-based calculations of the electronic and geometric structures and energetics of Se and O adsorption on Ru 93- and 105-atom nanoparticles. These studies have been inspired by the fact that Se/Ru nanoparticles are considered promising electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on direct methanol fuel cell cathodes and the oxygen binding energy is a descriptor for the catalyst activity toward this reaction. We find the character of chemical bonding of Se on a flat nanoparticle facet to be ionic, similar to that obtained earlier for the Se/Ru(0001) surface, while in the case of a low-coordinated Ru configuration there is an indication of some covalent contribution to the bonding leading to an increase in Se binding energy. Se and O co-adsorbed on the flat facet both accept electronic charge from Ru, whereas the adsorption on low-coordinated sites causes more complicated valence charge redistribution. The Se modification of the Ru particles leads to weakening of the oxygen bonding to the particles. However, overall, O binding energies are found to be higher for the particles than for Se/Ru(0001). The high reactivity of the Se/Ru nanoparticles found in this work is not favorable for ORR. We thus expect that larger particles with well-developed flat facets will be more efficient ORR catalysts than small nanoparticles with a large fraction of under-coordinated adsorption sites.