Charge Transfer Drives Hydrogen Adsorption, Spillover, and Hydroxylation

Sep 17, 2024

Metal−support interactions have garnered much attention due to their impact on the structure and reactivity of supported metal catalysts. Despite the widespread recognition of multifunctional mechanisms in metal / metal oxide systems, much less attention has been paid to how the metal influences its support. Here, metal−support interactions are explored usinghydrogen adsorption on a dehydroxylated γ-Al2O3(110) supported Pt10 cluster as a prototype. Through molecular dynamics simulations performed using an actively trained machine-learned force field, reversible hydrogen spillover was observed between the support and the metal. Analysis of the electronic structure and chemical nature of the interface reveals that charge transfer from H to the Pt10 cluster drives the spillover by stabilizing H adsorbed on the support. The same charge transfer concept also explains the stabilization of OH fragments at the Pt10/γ-Al2O3(110) interface despite the scarcely impacted or even reduced acidity of interfacial Al sites. These findings demonstrate the rich chemistry of metal−support interfaces and the importance of “inverse” effects in the fundamental understanding of supported catalysts.

Authors

Dionisios Vlachos (University of Delaware)

Additional Materials

Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF)