Selectivity and Reactivity of Pd-Rich PdGa Surfaces toward Selective Hydrogenation of Acetylene: Interplay of Surface Roughness and Ensemble Effect

Abstract

Recent experiments have shown that PdGa nanocrystallites act as highly selective and reactive catalyst for selective hydrogenation of acetylene to ethylene. Motivated by these experimental results we have studied the mechanism and energetics of the above reaction on low indexed (100) and (110) PdGa surfaces using first-principles density functional theory based calculations. We find that the energetically favorable (100) surface created by cleaving the crystal in the less dense region shows reasonably good selectivity and high reactivity. The reactivity on this surface is comparable to that observed on Pd(111) surfaces. Since this surface termination is stable over a wide range of Ga chemical potential and hence is likely to occupy a substantial fraction of the surface area of PdGa nanocrystallites, we suggest this termination is responsible for the selectivity and reactivity exhibited by PdGa. In contrast to other surfaces where hydrogen adsorption and dissociation is followed by acetylene adsorption and hydrogenation, on this surface we identify a novel reaction mechanism in which hydrogen dissociation occurs in the presence of acetylene. A careful analysis of the factors determining the selectivity shows that selectivity results due to an interplay between surface roughness and chemical nature of the reactive ensemble.