Physical origin of the high reactivity of subsurface hydrogen in catalytic hydrogenation

摘要

In the catalytic hydrogenation of hydrocarbons, subsurface hydrogen is known experimentally to be much more reactive than surface hydrogen. We sue density functional theory to identify low-energy pathways for the hydrogenation of methyl adsorbed on Ni(111) by surface and subsurface hydrogen. The metastability of subsurface hydrogen with respect to chemisorbed hydrogen is mainly responsible for the low activation barrier for subsurface reactions.