Insight into the adsorption competition and the relationship between dissociation and association reactions in ammonia synthesis

Structural dynamics of Ru clusters during nitrogen dissociation in ammonia synthesis

The dynamic evolution of catalyst structures greatly influences the reactivity, especially sub-nanometer clusters, exhibiting complex configurational fluctuation. In the present work, we study the structural dynamics of a Ru₁₉ cluster during the dissociation of N₂ and calculate the reaction free energies using ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD). Our AIMD calculation predicts a peak-shaped reaction entropy curve due to the adsorption-induced phase transition of the Ru₁₉ cluster. The low melting points of sub-nanometer clusters make it possible to activate N₂ at low temperatures. This work demonstrates that the dynamic changes of cluster structures have a non-negligible effect on reaction free energy and offer an opportunity for achieving ammonia synthesis under mild conditions.

Theoretical Heterogeneous Catalysis: Scaling Relationships and Computational Catalyst Design

Scaling relationships are theoretical constructs that relate the binding energies of a wide variety of catalytic intermediates across a range of catalyst surfaces. Such relationships are ultimately derived from bond order conservation principles that were first introduced several decades ago. Through the growing power of computational surface science and catalysis, these concepts and their applications have recently begun to have a major impact in studies of catalytic reactivity and heterogeneous catalyst design. In this review, the detailed theory behind scaling relationships is discussed, and the existence of these relationships for catalytic materials ranging from pure metal to oxide surfaces, for numerous classes of molecules, and for a variety of catalytic surface structures is described. The use of the relationships to understand and elucidate reactivity trends across wide classes of catalytic surfaces and, in some cases, to predict optimal catalysts for certain chemical reactions, is explored. Finally, the observation that, in spite of the tremendous power of scaling relationships, their very existence places limits on the maximum rates that may be obtained for the catalyst classes in question is discussed, and promising strategies are explored to overcome these limitations to usher in a new era of theory-driven catalyst design.

Electrochemical ammonia production on molybdenum nitride nanoclusters

Theoretical investigations of electrochemical production of ammonia at ambient temperature and pressure on nitrogen covered molybdenum nanoparticles are presented. Density functional theory calculations are used in combination with the computational hydrogen electrode approach to calculate the free energy profile for electrochemical protonation of N2 and N adatoms on cuboctahedral Mo13 nanoparticles. Pathways for electrochemical ammonia production via direct protonation of N adatoms and N2 admolecules with an onset potential as low as -0.5 V and generally lower than -0.8 V on both a nitrogen covered or a clean Mo nanoparticle. Calculations presented here show that nitrogen dissociation at either nitrogen vacancies on a nitrogen covered molybdenum particle or at a clean molybdenum particle is unlikely to occur under ambient conditions due to very high activation barriers of 1.8 eV. The calculations suggest that the nitrogen will be favored at the surface compared to hydrogen even at potentials of -0.8 V and the Faradaic losses due to HER should be low.

DFT based study of transition metal nano-clusters for electrochemical NH3 production

Theoretical studies of the possibility of producing ammonia electrochemically at ambient temperature and pressure without direct N2 dissociation are presented. Density functional theory calculations were used in combination with the computational standard hydrogen electrode to calculate the free energy profile for the reduction of N2 admolecules and N adatoms on transition metal nanoclusters in contact with an acidic electrolyte. This work has established linear scaling relations for the dissociative reaction intermediates NH, NH2, and NH3. In addition, linear scaling relations for the associative reaction intermediates N2H, N2H2, and N2H3 have been determined. Furthermore, correlations between the adsorption energies of N, N2, and H have been established. These scaling relations and the free energy corrections are used to establish volcanoes describing the onset potential for electrochemical ammonia production and hence describe the potential determining steps for the electrochemical ammonia production. The competing hydrogen evolution reaction has also been analyzed for comparison.