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Title: Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Resistance and Structural Stability of Single Atom Alloys

Abstract

Platinum group metals (PGMs) serve as highly active catalysts in a variety of heterogeneous chemical processes. Unfortunately, their high activity is accompanied by a high affinity for CO and thus, PGMs are susceptible to poisoning. Alloying PGMs with metals exhibiting lower affinity to CO could be an effective strategy toward preventing such poisoning. In this work, we use density functional theory to demonstrate this strategy, focusing on highly dilute alloys of PGMs (Pd, Pt, Rh, Ir and Ni) with poison resistant coinage metal hosts (Cu, Ag, Au), such that individual PGM atoms are dispersed at the atomic limit forming single atom alloys (SAAs). We show that compared to the pure metals, CO exhibits lower binding strength on the majority of SAAs studied, and we use kinetic Monte Carlo simulation to obtain relevant temperature programed desorption spectra, which are found to be in good agreement with experiments. Additionally, we consider the effects of CO adsorption on the structure of SAAs. We calculate segregation energies which are indicative of the stability of dopant atoms in the bulk compared to the surface layer, as well as aggregation energies to determine the stability of isolated surface dopant atoms compared to dimer and trimer configurations.more » Our calculations reveal that CO adsorption induces dopant atom segregation into the surface layer for all SAAs considered here, whereas aggregation and island formation may be promoted or inhibited depending on alloy constitution and CO coverage. Furthermore, this observation suggests the possibility of controlling ensemble effects in novel catalyst architectures through CO-induced aggregation and kinetic trapping.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Univ. of College London, London (United Kingdom)
  2. Tufts Univ., Medford, MA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Tufts Univ., Medford, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1502103
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0004738
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Topics in Catalysis
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 61; Journal Issue: 5-6; Journal ID: ISSN 1022-5528
Publisher:
Springer
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; Carbon monoxide; Catalyst stability; Catalyst poisoning; Highly dilute alloy; Platinum group metals; Ensemble effects

Citation Formats

Darby, Matthew T., Sykes, E. Charles H., Michaelides, Angelos, and Stamatakis, Michail. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Resistance and Structural Stability of Single Atom Alloys. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1007/s11244-017-0882-1.
Darby, Matthew T., Sykes, E. Charles H., Michaelides, Angelos, & Stamatakis, Michail. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Resistance and Structural Stability of Single Atom Alloys. United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11244-017-0882-1
Darby, Matthew T., Sykes, E. Charles H., Michaelides, Angelos, and Stamatakis, Michail. 2018. "Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Resistance and Structural Stability of Single Atom Alloys". United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11244-017-0882-1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1502103.
@article{osti_1502103,
title = {Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Resistance and Structural Stability of Single Atom Alloys},
author = {Darby, Matthew T. and Sykes, E. Charles H. and Michaelides, Angelos and Stamatakis, Michail},
abstractNote = {Platinum group metals (PGMs) serve as highly active catalysts in a variety of heterogeneous chemical processes. Unfortunately, their high activity is accompanied by a high affinity for CO and thus, PGMs are susceptible to poisoning. Alloying PGMs with metals exhibiting lower affinity to CO could be an effective strategy toward preventing such poisoning. In this work, we use density functional theory to demonstrate this strategy, focusing on highly dilute alloys of PGMs (Pd, Pt, Rh, Ir and Ni) with poison resistant coinage metal hosts (Cu, Ag, Au), such that individual PGM atoms are dispersed at the atomic limit forming single atom alloys (SAAs). We show that compared to the pure metals, CO exhibits lower binding strength on the majority of SAAs studied, and we use kinetic Monte Carlo simulation to obtain relevant temperature programed desorption spectra, which are found to be in good agreement with experiments. Additionally, we consider the effects of CO adsorption on the structure of SAAs. We calculate segregation energies which are indicative of the stability of dopant atoms in the bulk compared to the surface layer, as well as aggregation energies to determine the stability of isolated surface dopant atoms compared to dimer and trimer configurations. Our calculations reveal that CO adsorption induces dopant atom segregation into the surface layer for all SAAs considered here, whereas aggregation and island formation may be promoted or inhibited depending on alloy constitution and CO coverage. Furthermore, this observation suggests the possibility of controlling ensemble effects in novel catalyst architectures through CO-induced aggregation and kinetic trapping.},
doi = {10.1007/s11244-017-0882-1},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1502103}, journal = {Topics in Catalysis},
issn = {1022-5528},
number = 5-6,
volume = 61,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Mon Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 83 works
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Figures / Tables:

Fig. 1 Fig. 1: Adsorption energies (Eads) of CO on the most stable sites of SAA (111) surfaces. Corresponding values of Eads for pure metal (111) surfaces are shown by coloured horizontal lines [Ag (grey), Au (gold), Cu (orange), Ni (pink), Pd (cyan), Pt (blue), Rh (green) and Ir (purple)]

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Works referencing / citing this record:

The Synergy of Dilute Pd and Surface Oxygen Species for Methane Upgrading on Au 3 Pd(111)
journal, September 2019


Predicting aggregation energy for single atom bimetallic catalysts on clean and O* adsorbed surfaces through machine learning models
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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.